Former Spurs exec David Buchler gives evidence in ‘Harrods croissant fight’ trial

The jury at Isleworth Crown Court were played a tape of his police interview shortly after the incident on New Year's Eve 2015.

He said: “It’s all terribly surreal to me now. I had bought a challah [a type of Jewish bread] and I had decided to buy a croissant and a pain-au-raisin.”

Mr Buchler told the police that he approached the till and had handed over some money for the challah when Mrs Birrane tried to push in front of him.

He said: “A couple came from the right-hand side and accused me pushing in, and said to the lady at the till to stop people pushing in.

“They were verbally very aggressive, both of them. The verbal abuse culminated with him swearing and saying, ‘f*** off, you dirty Jew’.

“To be honest, everything happened so quickly. He then moved behind me in a very aggressive manner and I thought he was going to hit me.

“I put my arm up, my left arm, about shoulder height in order to protect myself, and caught him on the face with my left elbow.

“I had been explaining to the lady that I had bought the challah, I was just paying and had given the money to pay for the croissant and other piece and I was showing her inside the bag.

“That’s when the guy said, in a verbal way, ‘f*** off you dirty Jew’, and started moving behind me.

“It was all in a split second. This was all very quick - I saw him move behind me and I thought to myself, he’s going to his me.”

Mr Buchler said Mr Birrane was being “very aggressive” and that he had simply lifted his arms to protect himself.

He added: “I did not know what his intentions were. I felt he was just about to become physically aggressive as opposed to verbally aggressive.”

Mr Buchler told the police that Mr Birrane definitely told him to ‘f*** off’, but that: “I cannot 100 percent say whether it was him or his wife that said, ‘you dirty Jew’.

“He said the ‘f*** off’ bit, which was to me the aggressive bit. ‘You dirty Jew’ didn’t add or subtract to the aggression.

“That’s when I felt the alarm bells ringing in my head and I thought, ‘are you going to be attacked or are you not going to be attacked’.

“The police man said he had seen on the CCTV that I had smacked him in the face - but that is 100 percent not true.

“I have never hit anybody in my life. I am 64 years old, I have never done anything, never been arrested, never done anything at all.

“He ripped my glasses off - I cannot tell what happened after that. I think I was pulled back and he was pulled back by somebody.

“My glasses were ripped off and thrown to the floor.”

Buchler said he waited with security, because he “didn’t want to leave in an improper way”, before being given the all clear by the guard and heading downstairs “to buy some slippers”.

He added: “I was defending myself, but I am so sorry if I have really hurt him and he has broken his nose. I’m devastated.

“I’m just so sorry.”
Mr Buchler outlined for the court his version of events from New Year’s Eve last year - his 64th birthday.

He said he was approached in the queue, first by Rosaria Birrane and later by her husband, and the pair accused him of queue jumping.

Buchler said Mr Birrane was “extremely aggressive” and that his “eyes were on fire” before he lifted an arm to defend himself hitting his nose with his elbow.

He told Isleworth Crown Court that he had suffered a slipped disc earlier in that year and had to carefully manage his diet due to his diabetes.

Mr Buchler said he had returned to the queue at the bakery in Harrods on Knightsbridge to buy a croissant and a pain-au-raisin because "I felt like I needed a bit of food".

Recounting the incident, he said: “I bought a challah, because on a Friday night, you say a blessing for having food, a blessing for having wine or a drink - that’s a very common thing I would do.

“I wasn’t in any particular hurry. We had friends to go to for a party.”

Asked whether he told the girl behind the till to ‘f***ing hurry up”, Buchler said: “No, never. I’m not a man who swears.

“I’m not an angry chap. I can be firm if I need to be firm, but I’m always courteous.

“I see absolutely no reason to swear or use bad language, certainly in the context of what happened.”

Buchler told the court that at that moment, Mrs Birrane came up beside him and accused him of pushing in.

He said: “She was really, really irritated. It was just amazing that somebody could become quite so irritated quite so quickly. She told me to 'Bugger off to the end of the line.'

“I explained I’d been in the other queue, had bought a challah. I used the word challah once.

“She was constantly shouting and swearing at me. So I told her to shut up.”

Buchler told the jury that Mr Birrane then came behind him, adding: “There was eye-contact, but it wasn’t specific.

“I don’t think he did much, actually, until he told me to 'f*** off'. The 'f*** off' that I got, which was in a very guttural tone, came from behind me.

“That’s what, for me, was frightening, from Mr Birrane.

“The whole thing has taken me unawares. She has been extremely aggressive, extremely aggressive, and at the same time there’s also this ‘dirty Jew’.

“My hackles were up. Seeing him in my peripheral vision him coming towards me, the ‘dirty Jew’ was secondary, to be honest, but it was part of the red lights that I got.

“There’s no question it was said. It was said almost at the same time, which Is why I think it’s more likely to be Mrs Birrane, as he said, ‘f*** off’.

“I felt I was about to be hit, so I turned around, and as I did, as he came towards me, my elbow contacted his nose.

“My hands never contacted him.”

Buchler told the court he was not aggressive “in the slightest” and had “never hit anybody in [his] life”.

He added: “I connected with him and he then staggered back.

“He then came forward again, grabbing at my face. I was wearing my glasses.

“He was clawing at my face and trying to get hold my face, but got my glasses and threw them down.

“They ended up on the floor by the bread counter. It was done aggressively.

“He was coming towards me and then people around tried to pull him off me and make sure I was not going to go back to him.

“We were both held, parted. I remember looking for my glasses and wanting to try and just see what was going on."

Mr Goldberg asked: “Mrs Birrane told us that she gave them back: did she?”

Buchler said, “no”, and added: “There was a gentleman from Harrods, who I went with to stand and wait for security to arrive.

“After five or ten minutes waiting, nobody had come and I said, ‘Do you think it’s okay to carry on doing my shopping as long as I give you my card so you know who I am’, which he agreed to.

“I left and carried on with my shopping, bought some slippers in the basement, Uggs, and was later approached by security who said I should follow him.”

Buchler said he was then interviewed by police regarding the alleged punch, and was irritated that the police had assumed he was guilty.

Asked why he agreed to speak to police without a lawyer present, he said: “I was in a prison cell for the first time in my life felt a great sense of injustice.

“So when I had the opportunity to give a statement of what happened, I was happy to do it, because I had really been given no opportunity to give a proper statement before that.

“No one was really interested in whether I had punched a man or not punched a man - they just assumed I had.

“The officer said he saw CCTV that I had punched a man.

“I was fairly bewildered because I had not punched anyone. I acted in self defence.”

Finally asked whether he was guilty, Mr Buchler said: “I’m not guilty.”

The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, gave a statement for the defence: "I have known him (Mr Buchler) well for some 16 years.

"I would not have hesitated to attend court to give this evidence live on his behalf were it not for the fact I must be overseas during the week of his trial."

Mr Lammy said he met Buchler in 2001, when he was on the board at Spurs.

He said: "At that time the club was in severe financial difficulties and was facing insolvency and closure due to huge debts owed to the Midland Bank.

"David reorganised the club's affairs and, with a new chairman appointed, then arranged to the sale of the club to Mr Alan Sugar."

Mr Lammy added: "He is an absolutely brilliant businessman despite an understated and modest demeanour and appearance."

He said Buchler's time on the board was "associated with a period of vigour and organisational renewal at the club".

"As culture minister in 2006," Mr Lammy wrote, "I approached David Buchler to ask for his help in turning around the fortunes of the English National Opera (ENO).

"He seemed to me the ideal person and that if anyone could work miracles there, David could."

"In all the years I have known David Bulcher, I have never seen him raise his voice or get angry, in fact quite the opposite.

"I have seen him dealing with tense situations and defusing them at times of challenge.

"I have never seen him lose his temper or react angrily, and I have never seen him behave badly in either deed or language.

"He is by nature a modest and unassuming man who never boasts and who makes light of his remarkable achievements and success is life.

"I know him also to be a very kind and generous and charitable man."

With reference to the assault allegation against Buchler, Mr Lammy said: "I find this to be wholly out of character for the man whom I know and admire.

"In short, I have only known him to act as a perfect gentleman."

The court also heard a statement from Harley Street doctor, Alasdair (corr) Mace, who said he had seen injuries similar to those endured by Mr Birrane suffered as a result of a "baby jerking its head back into a parents face".

He added: "He suffered a new nasal deformity and a nose-bleed. There was no fall and no loss of consciousness."

Mr Buchler, of Mayfair, central London, denies one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.