Restaurateur accused of spiking woman’s drink with date-rape drug tells jury he was ‘wrong’

A restaurateur accused of spiking a woman’s drink with a date-rape drug at an exclusive private members’ club has tearfully told a jury that putting a substance in her drink was “wrong”.

Vikas Nath, 63, used a straw to put gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) into the woman’s drink while sitting in the rooftop garden bar at Annabel's, Mayfair, on January 15 2024, a trial at Southwark Crown Court was told.

Nath, who has a portfolio of top restaurants in the UK and Spain, including two with Michelin stars, admits spiking the woman’s spicy margarita drink, but says it was to “relax” the woman rather than as part of a plan to have sex with her, prosecutors say.

Giving evidence on Wednesday, Nath, of Knightsbridge, west London, tearfully told jurors: “What I did was wrong and I regret it very deeply.”

But he denied that his intention was to “stupefy and overpower” the woman.

The defendant said that he had mixed the substance, which he thought was cleaning fluid, with tequila and that he had put it in the woman’s drink to “calm” her, the court heard.

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He said that the woman had been “erratic”, adding that he intended for her to be “less anxious and for her to calm down a little bit”.

Asked by his barrister, Eleanor Laws KC, what he had been thinking about in relation to sex, Nath replied: “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

Nath told jurors that he had himself consumed the substance a few times before that night as it heightened the effects of alcohol.

He also took a “swig” of it before entering Annabel’s, the court heard.

The woman and Nath met a few times before the events of January 15 2024, often for lunch – including at the Beaverbrook Town House five-star hotel and Nath’s Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant, Benares, the court heard.

Jurors had earlier heard that the defendant said in a police interview that he had originally bought the substance as a cleaning fluid for his BMW i8 car in about 2016, and had been told by a friend that it could also be drunk with alcohol as a “relaxant”.

He told officers that he was not aware what the drug was, the court heard.

Jurors previously heard staff at Annabel’s on January 15 noticed Nath dipping a straw into a small Madagascan vanilla extract bottle he had retrieved from his pocket, to suck up liquid before transferring it to the margarita.

Staff managed to switch the drugged drink for a fresh one before the woman drank from it, and Nath threw the bottle of GBL into a toilet cistern when police were on the way, the court heard.

Nath denies attempting to administer a substance with intent and possession of a Class B drug.

The trial continues.