Charles Hanson outside court on Friday. (Image: PA)
auctioneer Charles Hanson has been unanimously cleared at Derby Crown Court of coercive control and assault allegations relating to his wife, Rebecca Hanson. The TV star had denied abusing his wife after he was accused of assaulting her every six months over a 10-year period.
Mr Hanson smiled at his parents and gave a thumbs-up from the dock after the jury foreman returned the not guilty verdicts on charges of coercive and controlling behaviour, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault by beating after a three-week trial. The celebrity auctioneer’s parents, who were sitting in the front row of the public gallery, wept and hugged their son after he was discharged from the dock.
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Charles Hanson smiled at his parents and gave a thumbs up when the jury returned their verdict. (Image: PA)
Judge Martin Hurst thanked the jurors for their care in considering the case. He then told Hanson: “You have been found not guilty. That is the end of the case. You will hear no more about it and you are free to go.”
Speaking to journalists outside the courtroom, Mr Hanson said: “I’m delighted that after a year and a half the truth has finally come out.
“I can finally live my life again. I feel this burden has finally been lifted.
“It has been a tormentuous time and all I want now is to readjust to what has been such an ordeal. I am so relieved that this is all over.”
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Charles Hanson said he was “relieved” his “ordeal” was over. (Image: PA)
The three week trial heard allegations that Hanson put his wife 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.
Hanson’s counsel, Sasha Wass KC, claimed the Bargain Hunt star’s wife, Rebecca 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 asked the jury in her closing speech on Thursday to consider whether an 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.
Ms Wass told 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.”
The Crown claimed WhatsApp messages sent by Hanson to his wife amounted 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, provided a clear picture of the couple’s relationship.
Mr Kemp also alleged that the account given to the court by Hanson “stretched credulity beyond any reasonable limit”.