Architect jailed for molesting sleeping woman after drug-fuelled east London bar crawl

The director of an architectural firm has been jailed for sexually assaulting a sleeping woman after a drink and drug fuelled night out in east London.

Oliver Smail, from Aylebury, has been jailed for three-and-a-half years for molesting the woman sleeping on a sofa after a bar crawl in Dalston.

The 31-year-old was high on cocaine when he pulled down the underwear of the woman as she slept at a friends flat in Walworth.

The court was told that his friend sent a text message to another person saying that the architect was “literally attempting rape on the sofa”.

Smail, who was convicted of sexual assault by penetration, stated after the attack that he “thought she consented”, and denied any sexual contact when the case came to trial.

The Inner London Crown Court heard that he had met the woman at ‘Jones & Sons’ in Dalston which offers a two-hour ‘Off The Wagon’ prosecco brunch who joined his friends at several other bars.

The court was told the group that had been drinking heavily and taking ecstasy and cocaine that day.

The group then went to Smail’s friends flat in south London and the victim fell asleep on the sofa, on September 8, 2019.

The woman told the court she awoke to one of Smail’s friends dragging him off her, saying ‘stop touching her’.

“I sort of started to realise he kept on touching me and being inappropriate”, she said, according to the Evening Standard.

“I switched and lay on the other side of the sofa, it seemed to stop and I wanted to sleep.”

She said she later woke up to find her underwear had been removed by the former planning officer who was touching her intimately.

In an impact statement, read to the court, the woman said Smail, from Aylesbury, acted in “a predatory way”.

She said: “I was vulnerable when he decided to assault me, I was asleep and had no way of defending myself. This haunts me to this day.”

She added: “It frustrates me that he hasn’t admitted what he has done. I hope he will and take accountability for his actions.”

Smail was convicted earlier this month and sentenced on October 28 with Judge Benedict Kelleher telling the court that his actions “had real and lasting effects” on the victim.

The court heard how the victim’s friend confronted Smail the morning after the incident and he reacted by hiding his face with a pillow and saying “I thought she consented”.

He later claimed he believed she had consented to him touching her leg but nothing more and denied pulling down the woman’s underwear.

Smail who said in a letter read by the court that he “bitterly regrets” going out that night.