A woman who claims she was groped by a police sergeant at a bar in Clapham cried as she told a jury she has been “ruined” by the “disgusting” experience.

The alleged victim was backing out of the bar and trying to leave as she was already feeling uncomfortable when “all of a sudden I felt a presence to the right of me”, Kingston Crown Court heard.

Metropolitan Police Sergeant Rachel Bright, 46, of Worcester Park, Sutton, has pleaded not guilty to a count of sexual assault.

Bright, who is married, was off duty when she allegedly touched a woman without her consent at a bar in Clapham, south London, on December 5 2022 and then told her “Ha ha, well that one got your attention,” the court heard.

WARNING – GRAPHIC CONTENT

Giving evidence on Monday, the alleged victim said: “All of a sudden I felt a body behind me. Then I felt her hand go up and a firm grope of my vagina and then a laugh and a ‘Ha ha – that’s one way to get your attention’.

“I just froze.”

The woman said she immediately told her friend, adding: “I just felt absolutely disgusted, gross and absolutely degraded.”

She added: “I feel ruined, ruined.

“You not only have you ruined my life, you have ruined your own life. I’m a wreck, an absolute wreck. I do not know why you did it. It was disgusting.”

She was wearing a bright pink skort – a skirt which has a pair of shorts sewn into it.

She told the court: “I felt a hand firmly on my vagina. I felt her hand go up my skirt and firmly on my vagina. It was a grope on my vagina. I felt uncomfortable. It was somewhere around where you do not want anyone but your partner to be.”

The woman said she had about three alcoholic drinks while out that night and she did not really finish them.

The jury heard that Bright was mingling with people in the bar and the alleged victim felt she was “a bit over familiar” and was “kissing her face”.

Earlier Bright had allegedly made comments about the woman’s body which made her feel “seedy and gross”.

She told the court: “It just made me feel so seedy. It was unacceptable.

“It made me feel so disgusted. I felt so gross. It made me feel so uncomfortable being around her in that situation. I thought you are drunk a little bit. I had not been drinking.

“It felt seedy. It felt gross. I felt humiliated. It just felt gross. It felt grim.”

At one point Bright placed her hand on the woman’s bottom and then followed it up by kissing her on the lips, the alleged victim claimed.

She then told her friend that she wanted to go because she felt uncomfortable.

Rosa Bennathan, defending, said that Bright is married and a heterosexual woman who did not attempt to assault anyone.

Under cross-examination she told the alleged victim that “realistically what she (Bright) was trying to do was to grab the front of your clothing to get you off the dance floor” and asked if it was possible she had “drunkenly mistaken drunk clumsiness for sexual assault”.

The woman said she was not drunk or mistaken.

Earlier, prosecutor Paul Edwards told jurors that “throughout the night Rachel Bright took every opportunity to be touchy-feely with the complainant”.

Bright’s defence is that she does not remember making contact or touching but if she did, any touching was by accident and was not sexually motivated.

There was no intention to touch her private body parts, she said.

Bright, who works in the Metropolitan Police’s south west command unit, is suspended from duty, the force has said.