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Sir Iain Duncan Smith has told a court how he feared for his wife when he had a traffic cone “slammed” on to his head as “threatening” protesters followed him at last year’s Conservative Party conference.
The former Tory leader told a court he was subjected to a “cacophony of sound”, a banging drum, abuse and insults as he walked in Manchester city centre on 4 October last year with his wife Betsy and one of her friends.
The 68-year-old MP said he turned round and told the protesters “you are pathetic” after the cone was “smacked down” on his head while he was on the way to speak at a fringe Brexit event at the Mercure Hotel.
He said the group frightened him along with his wife and her friend, Primrose Yorke. He said he was particularly concerned for the safety of his company.
Sir Iain told Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Monday: “I have seen a lot of protests in the course of my time as a politician.
“I’m normally not overly concerned. People normally make their points, but not in a threatening way.
“This, I felt, was threatening, it’s as simple as that. I think they set out to be threatening … It was threatening, it was abusive and my wife and her friend felt that particularly.”
Sir Iain, who led the Conservatives from 2001 to 2003 and served as Work and Pensions secretary in David Cameron’s government, was giving evidence at the trial of Elliot Bovill, 32, of no fixed address, who denies common assault.
Bovill is on trial with Radical Haslam, 29, from Manchester, and Ruth Wood, 52, from Cambridge, who both deny using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
Sir Iain gave his evidence in the small, modern courtroom wearing a dark suit over a white shirt with a Brigade of Guards tie. He was sporting a poppy on his lapel alongside a ribbon in support of Ukraine.
Sir Iain with wife Betsy at the Tory conference in Birmingham in 2018
(AFP/Getty)
The court was shown CCTV footage of the moment the cone was put on Sir Iain’s head as his party crossed a small side road.
He described the moment: “I got three-quarters of the way across and I felt this blow on the back of my head and neck.
“I could feel something going on to it which knocked my head forward.”
Sir Iain said he took the cone off his head and turned round.
He told the court: “I didn’t know who had done it. ‘You are pathetic’, I said, and I dropped the cone.”
Sir Iain said: “It had been smacked down on my head quite hard.
“They are proper traffic cones and have to weigh a certain amount.”
The trial continues.
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