Gazza trial: 'If the kiss was sexual harassment, I have been sexually harassed for 20-years'
Former England footballer, Paul Gascoigne, told a police officer who arrested him for alleged sexual assault: "I know what it's about, I kissed a fat lass," a court has heard.
On the second day of his trial at Teesside Crown Court, the jury heard how 'Gazza' was arrested by a British Transport Police officer at the Jesmond Dene Hotel in Newcastle several hours after he kissed a woman on a train near Darlington.
The officer, Robert Moody, said when he had spoken to the 52-year-old former footballer, he told him: "I know what it's about, I kissed a fat lass."
When asked if he regarded the kiss as sexual harassment, he responded: "I get kissed all the time, so if that's the case I have been sexually harassed for 20 years."
Pc Moody said that when he got to the hotel, he saw Gascoigne sat in the foyer in an "intoxicated, drunken state" with a glass of beer in his hand.
He said that, after the defendant had been arrested, he told a custody sergeant: "All I was doing was trying to help a fat lass."
Gascoigne also police he had felt sorry for the woman, but admitted: "I'm not a serious person, I've got myself into a lot of trouble over the years."
He claimed to officers that he had heard a man on the train say something abusive to the woman about her weight.
In a police interview, which was read out in court, he told police: "I thought it was out of order calling her a fat lass. I sat next to her and gave her a peck on the lips. Some other girl got up and started having a go at us."
He said he leapt to the woman's defence because one of his sister's daughters had been teased about being overweight at school.
Gascoigne told police he'd only drank three or four cans of beers because he'd had implants which made him sick if he drank anything stronger.
He told cops: "I had this operation where they put pellets in and if you drink or take any drugs you spew up."
He was asked why he had asked his alleged victim whether she was a palm reader when he first spoke to her.
Gascoigne replied: "Whey aye, I am not a serious person, I enjoy life like it is, I have got myself into a lot of trouble over the years."
Gascoigne said he had got on the train at Birmingham with his two teenage nephews and had also been to watch a boxing match in Belfast.
Asked why he had cake sticking to his forehead when he first began speaking to the women, he replied: "That was my nephew messing about."
Gascoigne, of Leicester, denies one count of sexual assault and the trial at Teesside Crown Court continues.
