3 hours ago
About sharing
Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black twisted a woman’s wrist “very hard” during an altercation at a London nightclub, a court has been told.
Mr Black denies assaulting TV presenter Teddy Edwardes at the Freedom club in Soho on 18 August last year.
He was at the venue with his husband, Olympic champion diver Tom Daley, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
Ms Edwardes told the trial she met the defendant after meeting Mr Daley at the bar and offering to buy him a drink.
She said they then joined her and her friends at the booth they were sitting in.
Ms Edwardes told the court a man, who she did not know, was making her then-girlfriend, Love Island star Amber Gill, feel uncomfortable by sitting too close to her so she went to security staff to ask them to move him to another booth.
‘Felt humiliated’
“Security came to the table to do that, and that’s when Dustin stood up and everything started,” Ms Edwardes, who presents the Big Pride Party Agency on BBC Three, she said.
“He shouted at me, saying that I had made him feel uncomfortable since I got there.
“He said he felt humiliated.”
She said she apologised to him and told him she did not mean to make him feel like that.
Ms Edwardes added Mr Daley tried to calm his husband down, telling him to stop, the court heard.
She said Mr Black then grabbed her left wrist and twisted it as she held a drink in her left hand, the court heard.
“It caused my drink to go all over me and over Amber as well,” she said.
She described the twist as “very hard, really aggressive”.
Prosecutor Adrita Ahmed said it was an agreed fact that Ms Edwardes “went after” Mr Black as he left the scene and punched him in the back of the head, which she received a police caution for.
Asked about the impact of Mr Black’s alleged assault, Ms Edwardes told the court: “I feel uncomfortable going to gay bars now. That was kind of my safe space.”
Mr Black, who won an Oscar for best original screenplay for 2008’s Milk, denies assault.
The trial continues.
Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk