The co-founder of clothing firm Superdry has been found guilty of raping a woman in her own home after a night out drinking.
James Holder, 54, had gone back to the woman’s house uninvited, went to the toilet, and then promptly fell asleep on her bed snoring.
The multi-millionaire fashion boss later woke up and beckoned the woman, who was trying to sleep in the lounge, into her own bedroom and raped her.
Holder had denied charges of assault by penetration and rape and said what sexual activity took place between them was consensual.
A jury at Gloucester Crown Court, sitting in Cirencester, acquitted Holder of assault by penetration but found him guilty of rape.
The court heard that the woman was attacked in the early hours of 7 May 2022 after a night out at a bar in Cheltenham.
Giving evidence, the woman said she was crying and asking the married father-of-two to stop but he carried on.
The ordeal ended when she managed to escape the bedroom, and Holder left her home a short time later.
The woman denied suggestions from Holder’s barrister that she had initiated the encounter.
The court heard the businessman and philanthropist was “old school and chivalrous” towards women and “adored sex”.
He told the jury that the victim had kissed him first and it was “evident what she wanted to happen”.
“I did not see or hear her crying at any point,” he said.
Asked why he left the flat a short time later, Holder replied: “I had been out for much longer than I anticipated and I needed to go home.
“I let myself out. She was asleep on the bed.”
Under cross-examination, Holder denied the reason he had gone to the woman’s home was that he “saw an opportunity to have sex with her”.
James Haskell, prosecuting, asked: “You saw something you wanted and you took it, because the truth is that when you got to the doorway of the living room you said something like: ‘What’s happening, is everything all right?’ as you wanted to entice her to the bedroom and that’s why you said: ‘Can you show me?’
“It ended because she managed to escape off the bed.”
Holder replied: “That’s not correct. She fell straight to sleep. She was fast asleep, so I popped my clothes on and left.”
The defendant, of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was remanded into custody ahead of sentencing.
