SWANSEA CROWN COURT: Former Carmarthen MP, 83, cleared of groping woman on train

A former Labour MP has been cleared of sexually assaulting a woman on a train to Swansea.

Gwynoro Jones, 83, from Gorseinon, was found not guilty by a unanimous jury at Swansea Crown Court yesterday (Tuesday July 21). He had denied sexually assaulting the woman on a Great Western Railway service from London to Swansea on 16 July 2024.

Jones, who was the Labour MP for Carmarthen between 1970 and 1974 and was sent for trial last November, was accused of rubbing the woman’s arm and tapping her on the bottom during the journey.

After leaving Labour, Jones chaired the SDP and the SDP–Liberal Alliance in Wales during the 1980s, and later worked as a schools inspector and company director before becoming known as a broadcaster and current affairs commentator.

The trial heard Jones was a passenger in the first class carriage of the train and had bought two small bottles of red wine on board.

The complainant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court she had felt “very awkward and uncomfortable” after being touched. “The way he was touching me — that’s not normal,” she said.

She told the jury Jones had asked her personal questions, including whether she was single and where she lived. “I just answered politely. I stayed quiet for the rest of it,” she said, adding that she claimed he had told her she was “pretty”.

Describing the alleged tap on her bottom, she said: “It was hard, but not that hard. It definitely wasn’t a soft touch. I went into shock. I just kind of froze.” She also claimed it had left a bruise.

Giving his evidence in Welsh, Jones told the court he had rubbed the woman’s arm because he had “accidentally spat sushi” on her while talking, and had “brushed it away”.

Georgia Donohue, prosecuting, challenged that account. “I’m going to say you didn’t get the food on her arm before you touched her — I’m going to say the food came from your fingers,” she said. Jones denied this, saying he had been speaking with food in his mouth: “My son always tells me not to speak with food in my mouth.”

On the claim he had called the woman pretty, Jones said he had “never used the word pretty in my life”. “Pretty flowers, pretty view maybe, but never pretty woman,” he said, telling the court that asking people questions was “a Welsh thing, a west Walian thing”.

He said hearing and sight problems meant he had been holding his phone out into the aisle to focus on the screen, and believed the corner of the phone had made contact with the woman. “It was a complete mistake,” he said. “I said sorry straight away, of course. It was an accident.”

Defence barrister Kate Williams suggested to the complainant that she had “blown this entirely out of proportion” — which the woman denied, insisting: “This was not an accident.”

The jury returned its unanimous verdict on Tuesday afternoon, with Judge Geraint Walter telling the former politician: “Mr Jones, you can leave the dock now.”

The judge thanked jurors for their work on the case, and said he would consider an application from Jones — who did not receive legal aid funding — to recover his privately paid costs.