There was a time when the Captain's Club Hotel in Christchurch, Dorset, might have welcomed the likes of former beauty queen Samantha Williamson into its award-winning riverside restaurant.

Photos from her Facebook page show the woman who represented Great Britain at the Miss Europe pageant in 2003 sipping champagne in the grounds of what looks like a Mediterranean villa and posing in Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses on a sunny quayside in Morocco.

The glamorous 44-year-old was once married to a wealthy American stockbroker and became a catwalk model represented by the Storm agency, which launched the careers of supermodels Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne.

All in all, she looks exactly the kind of person who would be very much at home in what the hotel describes as the 'sleek atmospheric interior' of its bar.

Unfortunately, its patrons saw a different side to Ms Williamson when, in June last year, she lurched towards an unfortunate couple enjoying a quiet meal as part of a £1,200 weekend getaway to celebrate their 40th anniversary and the husband's recovery from throat cancer.

That came to an abrupt end when the over-refreshed mother of two from Salisbury, Wiltshire, jumped on to the man's lap and slurred: 'I want to sit on your big bamboo.'

He rejected her advances and she went berserk. Williamson swiped the drinks and a candle off the table, causing them to spill over the man's wife. 

This led to an altercation in which the husband pushed her to get her away from his wife. 

Both tumbled to the floor before Williamson spat at him and scratched him, drawing blood.

This humiliation and groping of a stranger was unfortunate enough, but it's what happened next that has raised eyebrows up and down the country.

Instead of arresting her and keeping her in custody, the police chose to take Williamson home and when she was subsequently charged it was with sexual assault, rather than actual assault.

Appearing before magistrates in Poole this week, she was given a six-month community order and told to pay £1,000 compensation to the victim, Steven Kennedy, who reveals in an emotional interview with the Daily Mail today he is furious she has been let off with a more lenient punishment than a man would have been given. 

So much so that he previously said he is considering a private prosecution.

This terrible end to what was supposed to be a night of celebration saw the couple drawn into what seems to be the latest sad chapter in the story of Samantha Williamson, a woman whose life has imploded dramatically since her modelling heyday.

Things were very different back in 1998 when the then-teenager's life was transformed after she won Face Of The Year, a model search competition held by a hair salon in her hometown of Bournemouth.

It would prove to be the launching pad to the modelling career that saw her travelling the world on assignments, as well as taking part in that 2003 Miss Europe pageant.

Although the crown was taken by Miss Hungary, Williamson continued to pursue her modelling dreams. 

To do so, she left behind her mum Amanda, 70, her builder stepfather Kenny, 75, and her two younger sisters and brother, and moved to America to marry a stockbroker called Josh.

There she gave up work and became a full-time mother after giving birth to son Parker. 

In an interview with the local paper in 2008, her stepfather described his pride at her success, but highlighted that it had not all been plain sailing when Williamson suffered from anorexia.

He said: 'We were very worried about her for a while. 

'She was told she didn't get a job because she was too big. Then she got so thin she got turned down for being too skinny.'

In a brief transatlantic chat with the newspaper, Williamson said of her life on the beauty circuit: 'It's certainly more glamorous than being a mum but I wouldn't change it for the world – I love being a mum.' 

But when her marriage broke down she returned to the UK – without her teenage son. She found love again with former restaurant boss-turned-artist Charles Williamson.

They wed in 2014 and have a ten-year-old daughter, but that marriage ended too.

How she must wish that relationship had lasted longer because, following Charles Williamson, she ended up with Adrian George, a Bournemouth-based window fitter with a string of criminal convictions dating back 18 years. 

Those included driving while disqualified and without insurance, and two drink-driving offences.

In 2014, he also failed to stop at the scene of an accident after he knocked a cyclist off her bike, leaving her with life-changing injuries, including fractures and brain damage.

This week, it was Samantha Williamson's turn to appear in court. 

Magistrates were told that it was the revelation by George that they would be relocating to a new area that caused her to drink herself into oblivion on the day of the assault, leading her to act 'like a woman possessed'.

Williamson's lawyer James Moore described her as a vulnerable woman, battling 'day-to-day mental health issues and not being with her children'.

Judging by her Facebook page, she is no longer in touch with George and presumably out of the relationship that apparently acted as a catalyst for her catastrophic drunken actions. 

Whether this will help her get back on the right path remains to be seen, given that, as Moore attested, alcohol is Williamson's 'kryptonite'.

'This was very unfortunate, she feels pure regret, genuine remorse and pure embarrassment.

'She was someone distressed, obviously intoxicated and needs help, and unfortunately she has carried that over onto people she doesn't know.'

He told the magistrates that Williamson has undertaken counselling. 

As for Williamson herself, she told the Mail this week: 'I just want it all to go away. 

'I'm trying to put it all behind me and rebuild my life. It's been very hard. I wish this whole thing would just disappear.

'My life was not always like this. I don't know where it all went wrong. I made some bad choices.'

Although believed to be unemployed, she will now have to find the £1,000 to compensate her victim – not that it will go far in erasing the memory of that awful evening.

Did she think I'd be flattered to have her sit on my lap? I wasn't. I felt violated and was let down by police. If a man had done that to a woman he'd be locked up... but she walked away with a fine 

Exclusive interview by Jenny Johnston 

What does the victim of a sexual assault – or a physical assault, for that matter – look like? 

Steven Kennedy is a walking, talking example of how victims do not fit one shape, size, gender or stereotype.

'I mean, I'm a big bloke,' he says. 'I'm 6ft 2in and I weigh 23st, although this is after I lost 8st during my cancer treatment.'

He gives a wry smile. 'I wouldn't recommend the diet.'

Steven is a straight-talking, naturally chirpy 59-year-old HGV driver from Ruislip, west London, who, until recently, was living quietly with his wife and battling a throat cancer diagnosis, 'minding my own business and just trying to stay alive for my family'.

He has two grown-up daughters and a baby grandson.

On Tuesday, though, he went to court to give evidence about being the victim of a sexual assault. 

Away for a celebratory weekend at a hotel and spa in Christchurch, Dorset, with his wife last June – a much-anticipated break to mark being in remission from cancer – Steven became the focus of unwanted attention from a drunk stranger, an attractive younger woman who had been sitting at the bar.

Upset about something, Samantha Williamson, 44, became abusive to Steven's wife, who had kindly asked if she was OK, and if she needed them to call her a taxi.

Then she turned her considerable attentions to Steven, forcing herself onto his lap, grinding suggestively and telling him (as his horrified wife looked on): 'I want to sit on your big bamboo.'

When he rejected Williamson's advances, Poole Magistrates' Court heard, she 'acted like a woman possessed', swiping drinks, glasses and a candle from the table.

'It was mad. Have you seen The Exorcist?' Steven asks. 'She was like that. I don't know what planet she was on. 

'I think getting on my lap in the first place was a dig at my wife – basically she was saying, "I can have your man any time I want", but maybe she thought I'd be flattered to have a blonde woman on my lap. I wasn't.'

With his wife getting showered in glass, Steven pushed Williamson away, causing them both to tumble to the floor. She then spat at him and scratched him, drawing blood.

Before other customers intervened, he was left trying to pin Williamson down with one hand, while trying to hold on to his jaw, which had been weakened from his cancer treatment, with the other.

'I was desperately trying to stop her fist connecting with my jaw. She had one hand free so was scratching my face, neck, the back of my ears. 

'I was covered in her phlegm. It wasn't pleasant at all.

'You wouldn't expect that from a woman. I would say a lady, but she wasn't a lady.'

Steven has the air of a man who has seen much in his life, but never this.

And the 'big bamboo' comment? Frankly, he's baffled. 'I've never heard that phrase and I didn't want her anywhere near it. 

'All I was trying to do was to have some time with my wife. After everything we had been through, we wanted to do something nice.'

He certainly didn't find the incident funny. It's common to speak to female victims of this sort of crime and use the word 'violated'. Is it applicable here?

'One hundred per cent it does feel like a violation,' he nods. 'I didn't ask for it – sexual or non-sexual. 

'You don't expect to have someone jumping all over your lap – in front of my wife, especially. She thought she could do what she wanted.

'Nothing like that had ever happened to me before and I hope it never does again.

'We were traumatised by that night. That break was the thing I'd looked forward to when I'd been sitting on the edge of the bed at 3am, 4am, 5am, thinking I was going to die. 

'And she ruined it and left me traumatised to this day. I still cry. It's ridiculous. I burst into tears talking to the prosecution person in court.'

That weekend away had been meticulously planned. They had actually booked a different hotel, 'one my wife had seen on the TV', but when they got there, the place was a disappointment and the service terrible.

Steven thought his wife deserved better. 'So we headed for Christchurch, where I knew there were some nice places.'

They ended up at the Captain's Club Hotel & Spa, set on the banks of the River Stour. And it was all lovely to begin with.

He almost dismisses the fact that he couldn't actually order 'normal' food because, after months of being fed by a tube inserted into his stomach, he couldn't eat properly: 'You're just happy to be alive, aren't you?

'I don't remember what I had that night, to be honest, probably something like mashed potato, maybe soup. I still can't have anything like steak.'

They'd retired to the bar area for post-dinner drinks when Steven became aware of raised voices.

'There had been a man sitting there on his own and she came over and landed herself beside him – she didn't know him.

'I was aware of, not a commotion, but loud talking first. Then she started shouting and screaming at him. He just got up and left, walked out of the hotel.' Steven's wife approached the woman.

'This is the thing. We were trying to help her. My wife said: "Are you OK?" She said she was and my wife came and sat back down. 

'Then this woman was shouting – at no one [in particular] "f**k off", "c***". 

'My wife asked if she wanted us to call her a cab. She said "f*** off". My wife returned to our table.

'That was when [Williamson] walked round [to] our table to get another drink but the bar wouldn't serve her. Next thing I knew she was reversing into me and… it was mad.

'I have this memory of being on the floor with her, glass everywhere and me covered in blood. Later I was sitting with the copper, thinking: "Did this really happen?"'

Williamson, whose defence team argued that alcohol was her 'kryptonite' and she had been going through a difficult time, admitted one offence of sexual assault, with District Judge Paul Booty telling her: 'I had no idea what possessed you.

'It started badly enough with you placing yourself on the lap of somebody and talking about a bamboo. 

'If that wasn't bad enough, it developed into a bit of a scuffle where you were spitting.'

Williamson, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, was given a six-month community order with a tag-monitored curfew between 8pm and 6am and ordered to pay £1,000 compensation to her victim.

An insult, Steven says today. 'That weekend alone cost me over £1,200 and it was ruined. But the reason I'm speaking out isn't about the money.'

As the victim of a sexual attack, Steven is entitled to anonymity, but he is waiving that right today, agreeing to be identified in this piece, because he feels so strongly about how this whole case has been handled.

'I've thought long and hard about this,' he explains. 'Although I'd told my immediate family about what had happened, I hadn't told my wider family and friends. 

'But when it came to the court case I'd driven a five-and-a-half hour round trip to court – complete waste of time that was, given that she just got a community order – because I wanted to stand there and give a statement about what she had done.

'I didn't care who was in the public gallery there, because I felt I hadn't done anything wrong.

'It's the same here. I'm the victim and I have nothing to be ashamed about. My wife says: "Are you sure you want your name out there?"

'She worries I have enough on my plate already but, yes, I do.'

Steven says his trauma was exacerbated by the way the police handled his case from the off.

He believes that if the roles had been reversed and that he had forced himself onto a female stranger in a sexually provocative way, he would have received very different treatment. 

'I said it in court and I will repeat it here. If I thrust my groin in a woman's face, or tried to, I'd have spent the next two nights in the cells before being hauled to court on the Monday morning.

'But on that night the police drove her home. They drove her home! What police force does that? She wasn't even charged until December.

'That woman should 100 per cent be on the sex [offender] register – as I believe I would be if I'd done it.

'While I'm glad it came to court, I think she got off very lightly. A man would not have walked out of court if he'd done what she did.'

Steven believes the case would not have come to court at all if he hadn't been a thorn in the side of the authorities.

While the police who turned up on that night sympathised with Steven, they failed to arrest his attacker. 

From the start 'they were a bit like limp lettuces, to be honest,' Steven says of the police.

'Two of them sat with me. They were worried about my jaw.

'One said: "This isn't on". But other officers arrived to deal with the woman. When they took her away I said: "Have they arrested her?" but they hadn't. I couldn't understand it.'

Having given his statement, Steven assumed that the wheels of justice would start to move within days, or weeks. 'No chance,' he says. 'It took months for them to actually charge her.

'I honestly think they were just hoping I'd go away.'

And early this year he was shocked to discover that she had only been charged with sexual assault. 'I said: "What about the physical assault?" and they said: "Unfortunately too much time has elapsed for that." 

'They said there was a six-month rule and since it was now after that, she couldn't be charged.

'I'd thought the attack met the criteria for ABH. That's what I was hoping for.'

He throws his hands up. 'I couldn't believe it. My brother was a police officer for 30 years and he couldn't believe it either.'

There is a 'six-month rule' but this applies to summary-only offences – minor ones exclusively heard in magistrates' courts.

It's unclear why the CPS didn't feel this case met the bar for assault charges, especially given there was CCTV footage of Williamson punching two other people during the fracas (believed to be a member of hotel staff and a fellow diner).

Steven is incredulous: 'I just feel completely let down by the system. This had a huge impact on my life. Even now I wake up at night, replaying it.

'I wasn't able to protect my wife and I can still see her standing there, with all the glass in her hair, shell-shocked.'

He adds: 'People say they understand what I've been through but, with respect, I don't think you can unless you've experienced it.'

How is his wife now? For understandable reasons she doesn't want to take part in this piece, but Steven says she 'has had so much to deal with, especially with me and my mood swings'.

The couple have been married for 36 years. The big weekend away was to mark the 40th anniversary of the day they met.

'It was in a pub,' Steven remembers. 'She was about 16. I was 17 or 18. It was the usual thing. Disco. Bit of chit-chat. I thought she was lovely. We haven't been apart since.'

Their daughters are now in their 30s and they've coped with a lot, as a family. One son-in-law has been seriously ill over the last few years.

Steven's own health became an issue when he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2023. The rug was pulled from under him, clearly.

'There were times when I was suicidal,' he admits. 'You sit there thinking: "My kids are going to watch me die."'

After an aggressive course of chemotherapy, followed by radiotherapy, how did he take the news that his cancer was in remission?

'I sat on the bed and cried,' Steven admits.

'And I shook my consultant's hand and said: "You've made an old man very happy."'

To have had that happiness sullied so soon by Williamson's actions that night is something Steven is still trying to come to terms with.

In court, her defence team said 'she has now potentially ruined her life. She has got a conviction. She's battling day-to-day health issues and not being with her children.' But Steven has no sympathy.

'I think she deserves everything she gets. If a man did this, no one would say: "Poor him".'