James Holder 54

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Superdry co-founder James Holder, 54, has been convicted of raping a woman.

A jury of seven men and five women found him guilty after a five-day trial at Gloucester Crown Court, sitting in Cirencester. He was acquitted of a charge of assault by penetration.

Recorder David Chidgey rejected Holder’s application for bail, saying the temptation for him to use his “significant resources” to leave would be “too great”.

Holder, of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, co-founded Superdry with Julian Dunkerton in 2003. He told the court he was on an “impromptu night out” on 6 May 2022 when he went back to the woman’s flat in Cheltenham.

A witness said she had called a taxi for Holder and a separate one for the victim, but he got into the back of hers. The court heard Holder fell asleep on the woman’s bed while his friend took the sofa, so she slept on the floor.

Prosecutor James Haskell said Holder appeared at the living-room doorway and asked her to join him in the bedroom. She refused, saying she was tired, but “he pulled her on the bed”.

Haskell said Holder “continued to touch” the victim and pulled off her lower clothing, which she “tried to stop”. “From time to time he would say sorry but then carried on. She was telling him to stop,” he told the jury.