Big Brother star denies sex charges

Jan 9 2013

A woman has told a court that her life was "ruined" after former Big Brother star Jason Cowan allegedly forced himself on her as she slept after a work night out.

Cowan, a contestant on the show in 2004, is accused of performing a sex act on the partygoer during an overnight stay at a lodge park in Lochgoilhead, Argyll, in December 2011. He denies the charge and has lodged a special defence of consent.

The alleged victim, 36, sobbed as she told a trial at the High Court in Glasgow: "This has ruined my life. If I had consented, I wouldn't be here."

The woman, who requested that Cowan be screened off during her evidence, said she went to sleep in a room at his lodge after she thought she had been locked out of her own accommodation.

She said she woke to find Cowan, from Glasgow, on top of her, and added: "He was leaning over me and I started to fight him to get him off. I was screaming at him to get off me. I don't know if he was speaking, I just remember he had a really nasty face."

The woman said she had not met Cowan before the night out and had not watched him in Big Brother. She said she drank around four gin and tonics and some champagne and Red Bull before dinner, when she had a further four or five gins.

Afterwards, she said she went to a party at the lodge where Cowan and her manager were staying and, after briefly returning to her own accommodation, went back to the lodge where Cowan was now alone.

The woman told the jury she asked if she could sleep in the twin room and said the next thing she remembered was waking up there "with the sensation that there was someone inside me".

Cowan's defence counsel, Emma Toner, suggested that she did get into bed with him and they began caressing each other. The lawyer put it to the woman that she consented to him touching her, which she denied.

"That guy's face and him pulling me out of bed has plagued my life," she told the jury. The woman said she was so distressed after the alleged incident that her children asked her if she had cancer. She said she told them that she had been mugged.