Female NHS Manager Jailed For 12 Months For Lesbian Sexual Assault

A NHS manager who was accused of a lesbian sexual assault on another woman has been sentenced to 12 months in jail.

According to the Daily Mail, Teresa Cottingham, a 35 year old from East Sussex, had first attacked the woman with a martial arts move in a hotel room before then forcing a sex act upon her following a conference in central London last year.

Apparently “almost senseless” with alcohol Cottingham had been escorted back to her hotel by the victim, who was known to her, in a taxi. When the pair arrived, Adam Davis, prosecuting, described the following has happening:

In the hotel room the defendant collapsed onto the bed. She started to get undressed. Ms Cottingham asked the victim to make a cup of tea.

The victim had her back to the defendant and it seems the defendant tried to pull her back onto the bed by the waistband of her shorts. She refers to the defendant as keeping on trying to pull her onto the bed.

At this point the woman had told Cottingham that she would regret it in the morning and continued to make the drink, however Cottingham then shouted at her:

You know you want it, you’ve been parading your arse in front of me.

Following this, the prosecution stated that the defendant was pulled onto the bed where there was a struggle, and that in trying to subdue her victim Cottingham had said:

I know what I’m doing – I’m better than a man.

Cottingham had then floored the victim with a martial arts move that caused the victim to hit her head on the cupboard.

By this point the barrister said the victim had made it clear that she didn’t want to participate and on pulling herself onto the bed and away from Cottingham acted to reinforce this by answering her question “What do you want?” by being told to “Get off me.”

It was at this point that Cottingham, who had removed the victim’s shorts and underwear ,performed the sex act on the victim before eventually telling her  “If you’re not comfortable with this, I’ll stop’, but the victim told her it was ‘too late for that.”

Arrested for the assault on February 5th, Cottingham, a mother of one, first claimed that the incident had been between two consenting adults but then later changed her plea to guilty. Cottingham was also sacked from her  position with Sussex Partnership, a mental health trust.

The judge on passing sentence said:

If this had been a man doing this, everyone would say he has got to go down.’As sex assaults go I have to say it really is a bad case.

This was a horrid attack.

I accept you were drunk and that had you not been, you would not have done anything like that.

It was a violent assault and humiliating for the victim. The impact statement shows it’s really had long-term serious effects on her.