לאחר שהפסיד במשפט בית הכנסת פיטר את הרב חיים הלפרין בלונדון

 אשה האשימה אותו כאשר באה לייעוץ אליו נגע בה

 A strictly-Orthodox rabbi who denies sexually assaulting a young woman who came to him for advice has acknowledged that he hugged her and was “infatuated” with her, but insisted he did not touch her inappropriately.

Rabbi Chaim Halpern, 68, stands accused of running his hand up her thigh and of touching her breasts and groin over her clothes in the flat above his Golders Green synagogue in June 2022.

Sarah Elliott KC, defending, told the Harrow Crown Court that he denied sexually touching her but that he acknowledged that he had been a “silly old fool” who had become infatuated with a young woman “who ran rings around him”.

The jury was played sexually explicit extracts from telephone conversations between them later that year after she had returned to Israel, which she had secretly recorded.

While Rabbi Halpern should not have pretended to police that he did not know about the phone conversations, “could you imagine his panic” at the time, the barrister said. He was “an elderly Orthodox rabbi caught in a telephone affair.”

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/rabbi-chaim-halpern-golders-green-infatuated-grope-qptb97u2