A strictly-Orthodox rabbi who denies sexually assaulting a young woman who came to him for advice has acknowledged that he hugged her and was “infatuated” with her, but insisted he did not touch her inappropriately.
Rabbi Chaim Halpern, 68, stands accused of running his hand up her thigh and of touching her breasts and groin over her clothes in the flat above his Golders Green synagogue in June 2022.
Sarah Elliott KC, defending, told the Harrow Crown Court that he denied sexually touching her but that he acknowledged that he had been a “silly old fool” who had become infatuated with a young woman “who ran rings around him”.
She described the complainant as an “arch-liar” and a “kleptomaniac”, who may have sought a relationship with the rabbi for money.
“Some young women fund their lifestyles through a sugar daddy – was that what was going on here?” she suggested in her closing speech in the second week of the trial at Harrow Crown Court.
But prosecuting counsel Stephen Wells argued that the jury could be sure her claims of assault were true “because she has no reason to come into the courtroom and tell you that is what happened other than that is what happened”.
The woman – who had been living for some years in Israel – was brought by her father to see Rabbi Halpern in London for halachic guidance as she had been experiencing mental difficulties. She cannot be identified for legal reasons.
She said she had been alone with the rabbi in a locked study when the alleged assaults had taken place.
The jury was played sexually explicit extracts from telephone conversations between them later that year after she had returned to Israel, which she had secretly recorded.
After her allegations were broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12 in November 2022, Rabbi Halpern was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in March 2023 and charged a year later under his English name, Aaron Halpern. Contact between him and the woman had ended when he learned of the TV report shortly before its broadcast.
The court heard that a forensic analyst who examined samples of the recordings of the phone conversations had concluded that the voice matched Rabbi Halpern’s.
But Wells noted that, when interviewed by police, Rabbi Halpern had claimed it was “not him” speaking. “Is it possible he could have forgotten? It is ludicrous to even suggest that,” the barrister said.
Rabbi Halpern seemed now to accept that he had hugged the woman when they met in London because this was mentioned in the phone calls, Wells went on. “You might think that he was backed into a corner” by the analyst’s findings, the barrister said.
Hugging in the strictly-Orthodox tradition itself was “inappropriate behaviour,” he observed.
The jury might have been given the impression from the phone calls that when the rabbi had come to Jerusalem in the hope of seeing the woman, his intention had been “to meet up… for sex”, Wells suggested.
If he was a man “for whom his sexual gratification is all that is important,” he said, was he a man” who does what he wants, who takes what he wants?”
However, Elliott reminded the jury that “this is not a court of morals, it is not a religious court, it is not the Beth Din”.
Rabbi Halpern was “not on trial for hypocrisy or religious misdemeanours,” she continued, adding that he was “not on trial for talking dirty to a young woman”.
The defence also claimed that the complainant had encouraged Rabbi Halpern, including saying that she “always thinks back to that first hug,” in the phone conversations in which he came across as “caring” and “loving” and told her he loved her.
He had obviously ended up believing his feelings for her must have been reciprocated, Elliott went on.
If she had been previously assaulted, Elliott asked, “Why did she not simply hang up and block his number?”
He later said that he wanted to help her find a husband and see her settle down, the court heard.
Although the complainant had denied on the witness stand having been hard-up, she had talked in their phone calls about not having enough money in Israel, the defence continued, suggesting that her interactions with Rabbi Halpern may have been financially motivated.
Challenging her account of events in London, the Elliott told the court that it was impossible to lock the door of Rabbi Halpern’s study.
While he accepted he had hugged her, he denied locking the door and denied groping her, the defence argued.
The complainant was a “dishonest person” who said “quite openly to the defendant that she had been stealing all her life,” Elliott said. She had stormed out of the court when this had been raised with her.
While Rabbi Halpern should not have pretended to police that he did not know about the phone conversations, “could you imagine his panic” at the time, the barrister said. He was “an elderly Orthodox rabbi caught in a telephone affair.”
Explaining the decision for him not to give evidence in court, she argued the jury would not have learned any more than they had already heard. “He spares us, he spares you and he spares his family further embarrassment,” she told the jury.
The judge is due to deliver his summing-up on Wednesday morning before the jury retires to consider their verdict.
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