A wealthy American banker has been accused of pushing a woman into the path of an oncoming bus.
According to The Sun, police arrested Eric Bellquist after footage emerged this week of a jogger pushing a 33-year-old woman into the bus on Putney Bridge in London, on May 5 this year.
Bellquist has denied the allegations and police later released him pending investigation. Bellquist works at Hutton Collins Partners, a private equity firm based in Mayfair.
Today Bellquist’s lawyer claimed he was out of the country at the time of the incident and issued a denial of the allegations against him.
“This statement is issued in relation to our client Mr Eric Bellquist, who was arrested yesterday in relation to an assault that took place between a male jogger and a female pedestrian on the 5th May 2017 on Putney Bridge, London,” the statement begins.
“Our client has been wrongly implicated in this matter; he categorically denies being the individual concerned and has irrefutable proof that he was in the United States at the time of the incident.
“Consequently we expect a swift resolution to this wholly untrue allegation.”
Police questioned the 41-year-old on suspicion of Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) after CCTV footage of the incident was released to the public earlier this week.
The CCTV footage shows a man pushing the woman into the busy road as he runs across the bridge.
Luckily, the quick thinking bus driver managed to swerve and narrowly avoided hitting the woman. The bus driver and passengers then attended to the injured woman.
According to the police, when the accused ran back across the bridge 15 minutes later, the woman tried to engage with him but “he did not acknowledge her”.
The bus driver's colleagues have praised his reaction, saying “without a shadow of a doubt” he saved the woman's life.
