Bargain Hunt star Charles Hanson sobbed as he was found not guilty of all charges after facing trial over allegations he attacked his wife.
The auctioneer, 46, who had been accused of putting wife Rebecca, 42, in a headlock, was told he could leave the dock after the verdicts were delivered at Derby Crown Court on Friday.
It followed a three-week trial which laid bare in excruciating detail the collapse of his marriage to radiographer Rebecca, who is now divorcing him.
The antiques expert put his head in his hands and sobbed before punching the air and smiling at his parents, Phillip and Gillian, who held hands as the verdicts were delivered.
Hanson hugged his sobbing parents after emerging from the dock.
Speaking to Mail Online afterwards he said: ‘I’m delighted after a year and half that the truth has finally come out and can finally live my life and feel this burden has finally been lifted.
‘It has been a tormentous time and all I want now is to readjust to what has been such an ordeal.’
Hanson added: ‘I have experienced a long time of upset and I always believed in justice and here we are today the sun is shinning and I cant start my life again.
‘These last 18 months have been extremely upsetting I have missed my children and quite simply I can now get back to my life and I relish that. It has been very impactful I am very lucky my parents have stood by me from start to finish – without my family it would have been a very, very testing time.
‘When you believe in justice you know justice and here we are today. It has taken a long, long time and to anyone who knows me who has believed in me, who has supported me, who has messaged me – thank you.’
Bargain Hunt auctioneer Charles Hanson pictured leaving Derby Crown Court with his parents following the not guilty verdict
The auctioneer and his wife Rebecca Hanson are pictured outside their Derbyshire home
The BBC star, who runs an auction house in Etwall, Derbyshire, and is a regular on daytime shows Bargain Hunt, Antiques Road Trip and Flog It!, had been charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault by beating and controlling or coercive behaviour between December 2015 – when the offence came into force – and June 2023.
He was accused of putting his wife in a headlock when she was pregnant leaving her paralysed with fear as well as pushing and scratching her during a decade of violence, which began in 2012.
Hanson claimed the headlock was a ‘loving hug’ at a time of great stress while an incident when he pushed her onto the bed was a ‘short jolt…to get her attention away from TikTok’. He said his wife was a ‘fantasist’ who would accuse him of domestic abuse if he raised his voice or crossed his legs.
He told jurors he was a ‘slave’ to his wife – who wouldn’t let him choose what they watched on TV and completely under her control and when he sent text messages apologising for his behaviour he had simply ‘tapped every word she wanted to hear’.
Hanson, in a dark suit and tie, wept in the dock as the verdicts were delivered. Judge Martin Hurst told him: ‘Mr Hanson, you have been found not guilty you are free to go’.
It remains to be seen if the auctioneer, well known for his flamboyent enthusiasm, can now rebuild his career.
Hanson, a former pupil at Ecclesbourne School, in Derbyshire, was just 24 when he first appeared on Antiques Roadshow and Bargain Hunt, selected as programme makers tried to make the show more appealing to a younger generation.
At the time, he was working as fine arts manager at Wintertons Fine Art, which has auction houses in Lichfield and Bakewell, after completing a degree in Fine Art and Evaluation at Southampton University.
From there, he trained for a year and a half at Christies in London, before returning to live in Derbyshire when he joined Wintertons.
He went on to set up his own auction house, Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, Derbyshire, in 2005 and now has 10 across the UK. Until his arrest in June 2023, he was a regular on Bargain Hunt and Antiques Road Trip and Flog It! where he was known for his flamboyant auctioneering style.
He also regularly appeared in both local and national newspapers after unearthing gems such as a pair of bloomers said to have belonged to Queen Victoria, which sold for £4,500, and a 12,000-year-old mammoth bone, handed to him during one of his regular valuation days at his auction house.
Hanson, who is rumoured to have undergone a hair transplant in recent years, was also in demand as an auctioneer at charity evenings in Derbyshire and around the country, so much so that the judge at the start of his trial had to put on record that he had attended a dinner hosted by Hanson, though did not know him personally.
TV auctioneer Charles Hanson, 46, alongside a rare imperial Chinese ‘teapot’
Hanson met his wife, a radiographer, through mutual friends in 2008 and the couple married at All Saints Church, in Mackworth two years later. Among the guests were BBC Bargain Hunt presenter Tim Wonnacott and experts Philip Serrell, David Barby, Jonathon Pratt and Kate Bliss.
Their reception included a nod to both their professions with guests asked to guess the price of antiques or which limbs were pictured on Xrays.
Hanson, speaking to his local paper at the time described his wife as a ‘beautiful, blonde, elegant and lovely lady’.
He said: ‘I’m used to dealing with beautiful things but Rebecca is the most beautiful treasure of all and I’m very lucky she is my wife.’
Rebecca described her new husband as ‘charming and extremely attractive’ but perhaps in an indication of the trouble to follow added his difficulty saying no meant he was often very busy. ‘But, when he is away, I can usually flick on the television and see if he’s on there and that’s always a nice feeling,’ she said.
The court heard Hanson’s absence from home when working and filming was a source of tension in their marriage, with Ms Hanson complaining she was left to manage their home alone.
She said the first incident of violence came just two years after they wed and not long after Hanson was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Ms Hanson, 42, who gave evidence from behind a screen, said: ‘I was in my dressing gown, we were having an argument about something and I threw a tiny box which landed about two inches in front of him and he went for me and got me around the throat. I froze, I was absolutely petrified, he was not trying to choke me but he was angry.’
Mr Hanson said afterwards that he was ‘relieved’ to have ended his ordeal
Hanson said he did not attack his wife but gave her a ‘big squeeze’. He told police: ‘Rebecca can be a fantasist, she can exaggerate things, everything is exaggerated beyond reasonable belief – I believe that is the case with this hug.
‘I squeezed her in a loving way, it was not forceful. It was not me going over forcibly, it was a hug.’
She also alleged he pushed her onto the bed. Hanson said he put his hands on her shoulders after she swore at him and the incident was ‘not a case of domestic abuse’. In a letter to police he said he ‘pushed her right shoulder so as to jolt her backwards… to show my annoyance at her dreadful language, her rudeness towards me’.
Hanson told the court: ‘There was never an assault. I think her behaviour was completely unreasonable. It was bewildering, seeing her thrash her arms and fists about in front of her. I was concerned about her wellbeing. I don’t think she was very well.’
Hanson was represented during the trial by leading London barrister Sasha Wass KC, who prosecuted Rose West and Rolf Harris.
Ms Wass told jurors Ms Hanson was unstable, unhappy and ‘had an agenda’ against her husband as their marriage ‘imploded’ into divorce proceedings.
In her closing speech to jurors at Derby Crown Court, Ms Wass urged jurors to keep in mind that the case against Hanson rested wholly on the evidence of one witness, and that Ms Hanson had decided to start divorce proceedings.
Highlighting an incident in January 2023 in which Mr Hanson moved antique furniture into their then home, Ms Wass submitted that Ms Hanson had launched a ‘tirade of abuse’ aimed at her husband which amounted to ‘shrewish and very unpleasant behaviour’.
During the tirade, the court heard, messaging and video evidence showed Ms Hanson called her husband a ‘dickhead’ and a ‘selfish idiot’ and told him: ‘You have no f****** idea how to look after women, do you?’
Ms Hanson, the court heard, also told her husband: ‘Don’t bother with a curry – I won’t f****** eat it.’
Charles Hanson with the two paintings by Queen Victoria. He denied charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault by beating and controlling or coercive behaviour
Ms Wass told the jury panel, who have been given examples by the judge of types of behaviour that can constitute coercive control: ‘The observations I make are these: it (coercive behaviour) doesn’t include presenting your spouse with surprise antique furniture that they don’t happen to like, and it doesn’t include being late home.
‘The furniture episode will leave you in no doubt who was the dominant partner in the Hanson home. The suggestion that Charles was coercive and controlling is preposterous.’
Ms Wass also questioned the ‘integrity and authenticity’ of photographic evidence provided by Mrs Hanson, adding: ‘All the evidence in this case comes from her, including the evidence of her mother and her friend because those two witnesses simply repeat what she had told them.
‘Rebecca Hanson made these allegations to the police in June 2023 at the very same time that she decided to bring divorce proceedings.
‘Inevitably she would have had an agenda. Anybody involved in a separation, particularly a nasty separation is going to have an agenda.’
Claiming Ms Hanson had been vindictive, Ms Wass added: ‘What the evidence in this case shows is that Rebecca Hanson is unstable and unhappy and does believe that life has short-changed her.
‘Mrs Hanson had what most of us would consider is a dream life. She had a magnificent home together with somebody employed to clean that home.
‘She had an enormous garden and two gardeners employed to take care of the garden. Even the dog had someone employed to walk it.
‘All of this material luxury had to be paid for. Charles had to work very hard to keep up the standard of living that had been created for Rebecca.
‘He ran auction houses, travelled all over the country to make valuations. That involved him being away from the family home.’
Ms Wass asserted: ‘Instead of recognising his dedication, Rebecca felt remorseful and hard done by.’
Bargain Hunt star, auctioneer Charles Hanson, with an original Sooty TV puppet, which was auctioned at Hansons Auctioneers in Derbyshire
Mrs Hanson wanted the jury to believe that Hanson was an ‘ogre’ who would use brute force against her.
‘If there was any truth to that why on earth would she want him to be home in good time,’ Ms Wass asked. ‘If he was that character surely she would want him to be away as much as possible?’
Even when the marriage ‘imploded’ Mrs Hanson was still making references to Hanson being late home, Ms Wass said, adding: ‘Rebecca Hanson’s real complaint was not that her husband was violent and controlling – it’s that she didn’t have the attention from her husband that she felt she deserved.
‘She was not controlled in any sense of the word.
‘She was being taken for granted. That is not coercive control and it is not violence.’
Addressing the Crown’s claim that WhatsApp messages sent by Hanson were a ‘set of confessions’, Ms Wass said: ‘If you look at those texts in context he is doing no such thing.’
Ms Wass said an exchange in which Mrs Hanson referred to being ‘chucked around’ and Hanson said ‘I won’t ever again’ was a clear example of him apologising for something he had not done.
‘There have been 13 allegations made by Rebecca Hanson in this case,’ Ms Wass told the court. ‘Not one of them could possibly in your wildest dreams be described as Rebecca being ‘chucked around’.’
Ms Hanson is believed to be still living in the family’s £1.5m, six bedroom manor house in Derbyshire.
Hanson meanwhile has moved back in with his parents: father Philip, 76, a retired accountant who attended every day of his son’s trial, and mother, Gillian, 72, who gave evidence in his defence in Mackworth, Derbyshire.
