Angus Diggle

Angus Diggle (born 1956) is a British former solicitor, educated at Bolton School, Shrewsbury and Oxford University,[1][2] who was convicted of attempted rape in a case that became a cause cêlebre.

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Notoriety

Diggle caused something of a sensation when in 1993 he was sentenced to three years in prison for the attempted rape of a woman after a Highland Ball at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, Mayfair, London. Diggle however, did not help himself at the time, when in evidence he said to the police: "I spent £200 on her. Why can't I do what I did to her?" [3]Questions were also raised at the time regarding Diggle's guilt in the House of Lords in the UK.

Her friends found him wearing only frilly cuffs and a luminous condom. The sentence was later reduced to two years on appeal and he was freed after serving 12 months after gaining full remission for good behaviour. After the outcome of the rape trial was known, it was found out that Diggle had recently been sacked from his job as a conveyancing solicitor with North Western Regional Health Authority after he had been fined £50 for terrifying a 20-year-old woman on a train.

After prison and more trouble with the law

In 1997 he put his own name forward as one of 150 possible candidates for the then vacant Parliamentary seat of Kensington and Chelsea. Tory officials there were at the time keen to avoid embarrassment after then sitting MP Sir Nicholas Scott was de-selected for being found face down in a gutter of a Bournemouth Street. Diggle, perhaps not surprisingly was not selected even on as far as a long-list.

In 1998, Diggle was struck off as a Solicitor after getting drunk and abusive to two police officers in the red-light area of Bolton during a Sunday afternoon drinking binge. He is reported as having said to the police, 'Do you know who I am? I'm a famous person.'

In November 2010 Diggle was given a two year antisocial behaviour order banning him from every bar and club in his home town of Bolton - he was also told to stay away from rail services and other premises whilst intoxicated - the order also says that if he is caught breaking the order he could face 5 years in prison. Earlier in 2010, Diggle was caught urinating in the street whilst being seen to stagger through the red-light district of Bolton - he later swore at a police officer when he was arrested. Only a month after the urinating incident, Diggle was arrested again after racially abusing an Afro-Caribbean passenger at a railway station whilst drinking. He had been reported by a female customer services operator who had been left 'shocked and embarrassed' when Diggle apparently called the passenger a 'black bastard'.[4]

One of Diggle's neighbours reportedly said, “Angus used to be charming but the scandal left him ruined. He’s obviously bitter.” [5]

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