Care home owner Bharat Raghu, 73, convicted of sexual assault after groping woman in Stratford hotel lift in February 2022
A 73-year-old man was convicted of sexual assault after he groped a woman in a Stratford hotel lift in February 2022.
Despite denying the crime, Norfolk care home owner Bharat Raghu was convicted of the attack on the woman, whom he knew through work, at Norwich Crown Court last Tuesday (4th June).
The court heard that Mr Raghu had become “predatory and obsessed” about having an affair with the unnamed woman.
While on a business trip to Stratford, he plied her with drink and “steered the conversation to sex before suddenly groping and kissing her in a hotel lift”.
Prosecutor Lori Tucker said the pair had got into the lift together when he “grabbed her and forced his tongue into her mouth”.
Although the woman fled to her room, Mr Raghu chased her and kept banging on her room door and calling her phone repeatedly.
Sentencing the married father of two to a two-year community order, 150 hours of unpaid work and ordering him to complete 15 rehabilitation days, Judge Andrew Shaw said the defendant remained “utterly without remorse” despite the effect his “predatory” actions had on his victim.
He must also remain on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
Raghu runs East Anglia Care Homes with his wife and two grown-up daughters.
The female victim, who can’t be identified for legal reasons, is taking the company to an employment tribunal.
