Tom Daley’s Oscar-winning husband Dustin Lance Black twisted a woman’s wrist “very hard” at a London nightclub, a court has been told.
Black, who married the Olympic champion diver, 29, in 2017, is charged with assaulting Teddy Edwardes at the Freedom nightclub in Soho on August 18 last year.
He was at the venue with Daley when he had an altercation with Edwardes, prosecutor Adrita Ahmed said.
“The crown’s case is that there was an altercation between Mr Black and Ms Edwardes,” she told Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.
“During the altercation, Mr Black made contact with Ms Edwardes’ wrist.”
She said the contact was “grabbing the wrist”.
Edwardes gave evidence to the trial, saying she was at Freedom with friends and her then-girlfriend, Love Island star Amber Gill, when she met Daley at the bar.
She did not know the former Olympian but offered to buy him a drink, the court was told.
Daley said yes, she said, and added that Black would also want one.
Daley and Black then joined her and her friends at the booth they were sitting at.
She said the pair were mostly talking to Gill’s friends.
She said a man she did not know was making Gill uncomfortable by sitting too close to her, so Edwardes said she went to security staff to ask them to move him to another booth.
“Security came to the table to do that, and that’s when Dustin stood up and everything started,” she said.
“He shouted at me, saying that I had made him feel uncomfortable since I got there.”
She added: “He said he felt humiliated.”
She said she apologised to him and told him she did not mean to make him feel like that.
I feel uncomfortable going to gay bars now. That was kind of my safe space
Teddy Edwardes
Edwardes said Daley tried to calm his husband down, telling him to stop.
She said Black then grabbed her left wrist and twisted it as she held a drink in her left hand.
“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”.
The prosecutor said it was an agreed fact that she “went after” Black as he left the scene and punched him in the back of the head.
She got a police caution for the punch.
Asked about the impact of Black’s alleged assault, Edwardes said: “I feel uncomfortable going to gay bars now. That was kind of my safe space.”
Black, who won an Oscar for best original screenplay for 2008’s Milk, denies assault.
The trial continues.
