TIME'S UP, MR COSBY!

He got away with it at his first trial but thanks to the #MeToo movement the sexual predator was finally found guilty C

- Nici De Wet

IT WASN’T her first time in the courtroom, facing the man who drugged and sexually assaulted her. Nearly a year ago she told a jury what he’d done to her but after 52 hours of deliberation they couldn’t decide if he was guilty.

This time it was different.

Recently, it took just 14 hours to find the man who became known as America’s Dad guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The guilty verdict made Bill Cosby the first high-profile sexual predator to face the full force of the law since the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements started late last year.

Andrea Constand’s harrowing testimony was enough to convince the jurors – seven men and five women – that the 80-year-old was guilty as charged.

Andrea (now 45), director of operations for a university’s basketball team at the time of the attack, revealed she’d been given three blue pills by the man she’d considered her idol. Her mouth became “cottony” and her legs “rubbery” and he helped her to the couch before she passed out.

“I was kind of, um, jolted awake, and felt Mr Cosby on the couch behind me, and my vagina was being penetrated quite forcefully,” she told the courtroom.

“I felt my breasts being touched. And he took my hand, and placed my hand on his penis, and masturbated himself with my hand. And I wasn’t able to do anything about it.”

She was 30 at the time.

The actor, dead-eyed and impassive, betrayed no emotion as the verdict was read.

But after the jury left, a darker side of the once-beloved star emerged.

Gone was the avuncular and kindly Dr CliffHuxtable of The Cosby Show – in his place was a snarling, foul-mouthed old man erupting with rage.