Thame hairologist was ‘scared out of his pants’ court told

A THAME hair consultant, facing several charges of sexual assault and indecent assault, denied in court today that whilst massaging a client in 1998, he dropped his trousers and pants and used offensive, sexual inuendo.
The defendant, Praminder Mankoo, accused the woman of taking down his trousers herself, after “very openly moving around in the chair and moaning and sighing intensely” which, he said, aroused him, adding that she then ma…..ed him.

“I then said,”Enough,” he said. “I zipped up my trousers and carried on with the massage.
“She was a forthcoming, willing participant,” he added.

Mankoo, who runs a hair clinic in Thame, said that he was “scared out of my pants” when arrested following a complaint by the woman, because he had not been given names at that time. He said that he accepted a formal caution from the police adding: ” because I had been at the police station all day, and I was very tired and scared. My wife was heavily pregnant and I had just set up a new business. The negative publicity would have affected my business considerably.”

Mankoo denied remembering seeing two of the complainants before, although he thought one of them ‘looked familiar’ and denied their complaints against him, that he had touched their breasts inappropriately, and in the case of the second woman, of dropping his trousers.

Mankoo denied that anything untoward occured during a massage he offered to a temporary receptionist, because she was stressed. He said they only talked about “things in general” and denied saying: “If these were someone else’s hands, what would you want them to do?”

When questioned by his Defence Counsel about the accusations of several complainants, that he had taken down their bra straps, Mankoo said that he always told clients before hand that they would have to take down their straps so that he could massage their shoulders with oils. He denied asking clients to wear certain types of underwear for their next visits.

A witness for Mankoo’s defence, a retired GP, told the court that he had first met him during a consultation in his home in 2001, for a hair thinning problem she was suffering from. She said that she had never received a massage from Mankoo, that during her treatments she had never felt uncomfortable nor had there been any sexual connotations.

“I found him to be very pleasant, kind and sympathetic, a person of integrity,” she told the court.

She said that Mankoo had told her about his previous caution in 1998, recently at the start of these proceedings, and that they concerned similar matters to his more recent problems. But it had not affected her view of him, she added.

In reply to questions from the Prosecuting counsel, the witness said that Mankoo told her he was accused of touching breasts. “He said that, in the process of massaging arms, he may have touched breasts at the the side accidentally,” she said.

Prosecuting counsel: “Did he not tell you about mas….n, while patients were sexually aroused?

Witness: “No.”

She agreed that if she had been told, it would have changed her view of Mankoo, and that she had been mislead.

The case continues tomorrow at Oxford Crown Court.

Photo: Oxford Crown Court