Superdry co-founder James Holder jailed for rape

Just nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJonathan Holmes,West of EnglandandMaisie Lillywhite,Bristol Crown Court

PA Media

Superdry co-founder James Holder has been jailed for eight years for raping a woman in a “despicable piece of sexual violence”.

The 54-year-old, of Cheltenham, attacked the woman in her flat after a night out in 2022.

His victim told Bristol Crown Court he had taken her “choice, dignity and body”.

Holder, who appeared via video link from prison, showed no emotion as he was sentenced by Recorder David Chidgey, who said the attack was “about your sense of entitlement and your sense of doing what you wanted and your causal disregard for the victim’s absolute right to say what she wanted to do with her own body”.

Holder was found guilty by a jury of seven men and five women at Gloucester Crown Court, sitting in Cirencester, on Friday.

The fashion tycoon, who set up Superdry with Julian Dunkerton in 2003, was on an “impromptu night out” on 6 May 2022 which ended at the woman’s flat, the court was told during his trial.

A witness said she had called a taxi for Holder and a separate one for the victim, but Holder had then got into the back of the victim’s taxi, destined for her home address.

Recorder Chidgey told Holder “this was perhaps the first evidence the jury heard which spoke to your attitude and intentions”.

At the victim’s home, Holder fell asleep on her bed, then woke up and beckoned the woman, who was trying to sleep in her lounge, into her bedroom.

The woman refused, and told the court he pulled her onto the bed.

“At one point she remembered starting to cry but even then he didn’t stop,” said prosecutor James Haskell.

Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.

Violence against womenGloucestershireCheltenham