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CCTV shows Michelin-star restaurateur using straw to put substance in woman’s drink at private members’ club
A Michelin-star restaurateur accused of spiking a woman’s drink with a date-rape drug at a London private members’ club told a jury that putting a substance in her drink was “wrong”.
A trial at Southwark Crown Court was told that Vikas Nath, 63, used a straw to put gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) into the woman’s spicy margarita at the rooftop garden bar of Annabel's in Mayfair on January 15, 2024.
Mr Nath, of Knightsbridge, west London, admits spiking the drink, but says it was to “relax” the woman rather than as part of a plan to have sex with her, prosecutors say.
He told jurors on Wednesday (4 February): “What I did was wrong, and I regret it very deeply," but denied he intended to “stupefy and overpower” the woman.
The defendant said he had mixed the substance, which he thought was cleaning fluid, with tequila and put it in the woman’s drink to “calm” her, and told jurors he had previously consumed the substance as it heightened the effects of alcohol, the court heard.
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