Jury urged to clear Charles Hanson after claim his wife lied to ‘build’ her case

A jury has been urged to acquit TV auctioneer Charles Hanson after hearing defence claims that his wife had used the criminal courts as an extension of her “vindictive” divorce battle.

A three-week trial at Derby Crown Court has heard allegations that Hanson put his wife Rebecca in a headlock while she was pregnant with a baby she later lost, repeatedly “grabbed” her, locked her in a hotel room, pushed her, and scratched her as she tried to snatch a mobile phone.

The Crown claims WhatsApp messages sent by Hanson to his wife amount to a “set of confessions” to the charges.

In his closing speech to jurors on Wednesday, Crown counsel Stephen Kemp said the messages, including one in which Hanson promised to never again “lay a finger” on his wife, provide a clear picture of the couple’s relationship.

Hanson – who has appeared on TV shows including Bargain Hunt, Flog It! and Antiques Road Trip – denies charges of controlling or coercive behaviour between 2015 and 2023, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault by beating.

He told the court he was “almost a slave” to his wife, who left him “a beaten and broken man” by controlling him.

His lawyer Sasha Wass KC claimed Mrs Hanson “was not controlled in any sense of the word” and was instead unstable and unhappy and “felt resentful and hard done by” at her husband’s work commitments before their marriage “imploded” in 2023.

Ms Wass, addressing jurors on Thursday, asked them to consider whether the incident involving an alleged headlock – which Hanson claims was simply a hug – was “a real incident” which Mrs Hanson had distorted to “build up a false case” against her husband.

The defence KC said of the incident, which took place in 2012 and is not part of the charges: “Putting it shortly, if she is capable of lying about that, she is capable of lying about anything.”

Another alleged example of controlling behaviour – a threat to throw embers from a fire – was “rubbish”, while another in which Mrs Hanson had tried to grab her husband’s phone was a “family row” which “really should not find itself in the criminal courts at all”, Ms Wass said.

By the middle of May 2023, she added, Mrs Hanson was “desperate to leave and get Charles out of the house”, while he was trying to save his marriage.

Ms Wass alleged that Mrs Hanson, who married the defendant in 2010, had been “vindictive” towards him and had “capitalised” on the details of visits to Relate to make distorted allegations of 13 incidents of violence or controlling behaviour.

The lawyer told the seven women and five men on the jury: “The entirety of the case rests on the testimony of Rebecca Hanson. There is nothing else. You have to be sure that she is reliable, accurate and truthful.

“The reality, I suggest, is that Rebecca Hanson is none of those things and she has used this court, a criminal court, as an extension of her divorce battle.

“She has not hesitated to lie.

“There is no way that Rebecca Hanson was coercively controlled.

“This is a criminal court with criminal standards (of proof) and I suggest that Rebecca Hanson has dismally failed to satisfy the standard that is required that Charles has committed any criminal offences whatsoever, and invite you to acquit him of all the charges.”

Mr Kemp has alleged that the account given to the court by 46-year-old Hanson, of Ashbourne Road in Mackworth, Derby, “stretched credulity beyond any reasonable limit”.

Judge Martin Hurst is summing up the evidence to the jurors and has told them they will not be under any time pressure to reach verdicts.