The former Blue Peter presenter John Leslie has insisted at his sexual assault trial that he knows the line between being gregarious and criminal behaviour, and has “never crossed it”, as former colleagues spoke up for him in court. The 55-year-old, from Edinburgh, also rejected a suggestion that he had exaggerated to the jury how paranoid he felt when socialising around the time of the 2008 allegation. He denies grabbing a woman’s breasts at a Christmas party in the West End of London on 5 December that year. On his second day in the witness box at Southwark crown court, Leslie said he did not remember attending the party but that he had gone to some events in the years that followed the dropping of indecent assault charges against him in 2003. On Wednesday, Leslie had told the jury that around the time of the alleged assault in 2008, he would have been “paranoid” on any social outing. Cross-examining him on Thursday, the prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward suggested Leslie had exaggerated how paranoid he was. Leslie said: “If you had any idea of what I went through in 2003 [onwards], it didn’t stop because of the court case.” He added: “It’s 17 years. It just is relentless. They are not stopping, the tabloid press. This is what they did. I’m not recovered, I’m not better. I’m not the person I used to be. I’m not a recluse, I grant you.” Later Leslie’s former Blue Peter colleague Anthea Turner described him as “incredibly respectful”, as she and other former presenters of the show gave evidence. Turner, who has known Leslie since the 1980s, said if there had been any “stories” about him over the years she would have known about them but, as far as she was concerned, there were none. She said he was adored by women who worked with him, and that she found it “very important” to give evidence. Asked about his behaviour around women, she said: “I am a woman. He was always respectful, incredibly respectful, with myself.” Turner said the team at Blue Peter had been largely female and “everybody loved him”, adding that he was “absolutely adored by every woman I knew that worked with him”. On the 2008 allegation, she said: “This is not the man that I know, not at all.” Fellow Blue Peter presenter Diane Jordan said she had asked to give evidence at the trial “because I feel so strongly about this”. Describing Leslie as a “gentleman”, she added that he was like a “big brother”. She said he had gone from being an “exuberant” person to “like a shell” after allegations were made against him. Yvette Fielding, who also worked with him at Blue Peter, gave evidence via video link and said: “Never ever in the time that I have known John have I ever seen him behave in a disrespectful way towards any woman or man.” Asked earlier about the specific allegation, Leslie said: “I’m sorry I cannot remember being there [at the party] but I would never have done what she suggested.” Asked if he had touched someone’s breasts “in jest” or to “test boundaries”, he replied: “No. There is a big line between being a bit of a gregarious character and criminal behaviour. I know the line and I have never crossed it.” The prosecutor said it had been suggested by Leslie’s defence team that the complainant had been after “her own #MeToo moment”, but Ledward said that would require either the complainant to be lying and to have lied to the people she told at the time, or for all of them to have “got together and invented this story”. Leslie has told the court how he had become depressed and suicidal when he “lost everything” after being wrongly named live on television in relation to a rape claim, and after the 2003 charges, which were subsequently dropped. The jury has heard that a “raft” of allegations followed, with Leslie saying the tabloid press had made him out to be an “aggressive, sexual monster”, something he strongly rejects. The trial continues.