A pensioner remanded in custody over a translation wrangle has been given his liberty on a high tariff deferred sentence to prove he can co-operate with the authorities.
Loi Li was sent to prison last month after a sheriff at Forfar lost patience with him over his failure to comply with the preparation of social work reports.
The 66-year-old lost a six-month battle to retract a lost-in-translation guilty plea over repeatedly stroking a woman’s bottom at Arbroath Bus Station on Catherine Street on September 14 2014.
Loi “took umbrage” with a Chinese interpreter he had been assigned.
The assault was admitted by Loi last March but it emerged his interpreter in the dock spoke a different Chinese language.
The court previously heard Loi, of High Street, Arbroath, spoke the Sino-Tibetan language Hakka and had been given an interpreter who spoke the more mainstream Cantonese dialect.
However, a sheriff on that occasion was told that the opinion of another interpreter was that the Cantonese for “guilty” and “not guilty” were sufficiently different that Loi could not have misunderstood his plea.
A legal application to withdraw his plea was subsequently rejected and in mid-February Sheriff Gregor Murray remanded him, saying the accused was “the author of his own misfortune”.
He said at that hearing: “Every part of this case has been delayed following your original plea of guilty. The latest delay I do not find to be acceptable in any way.
“Considerable money has been wasted to date in this case and I want to be certain that there is an interpreter and you are there at the same time and place.
The accused has been in the UK for 45 years, working in restaurant kitchens across Tayside in that time and has little English, the court heard.
Appearing from custody on Thursday, Loi was placed on a high tariff structured deferred sentence until May 5 by Sheriff Pino Di Emidio, with special bail conditions including a requirement to fully cooperate with the criminal justice social work service.
Defence solicitor Ian Flynn said the three weeks on remand had reinforced to the accused the importance of complying with the authorities.
“I have made him aware that in the event of any breach the result would almost certainly be that he is returned to prison,” Mr Flynn said.
“I ask that he be given two months to show he can work with the community projects and the interpreters, rather than refusing to work with them as he has done in the past.”