A convicted Fife heroin smuggler has been jailed again for a string of domestic offences including abusing his partner when she came to visit him in prison.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard that Lee Rob’s girlfriend was told not to come back by two prison officers who saw her crying after an attack.
Robb, formerly of Leslie, was found guilty of a campaign of abusive behaviour spanning more than eight years following a four-day trial.
The 38-year-old was jailed for three years and banned from seeing the two ex-partners he abused for five years.
He was convicted of – between September 2010 and early 2011 – attacking his then partner in a vehicle in Leslie, leaving her injured.
He assaulted her again on the A922, near Kinross, this time striking her on the head with a bag containing food.
The trial heard he was threatening and abusive towards the woman between October 2010 and 2013.
During this time, he sent her a letter containing threats.
He also sent her a photograph on which threats and offensive comments were written.
Second victim
Robb also abused a second victim while he was in a relationship with her.
Between September and December in 2011, he assaulted her by seizing and pulling her hair at a property in Glenrothes.
On various occasions over that winter period, Robb assaulted her by repeatedly punching her and seizing her by the hand and squeezing, as well as seizing her arms, all to her injury.
Jurors agreed by majority that over Robb shouted and swore at her on various occasions over an eight-and-a-half year period.
Jail assaults
Jurors agreed, by majority, that he assaulted the woman in the visitors room in HMP Kilmarnock on various occasions between January 2015 and July 2016.
Whilst he was serving time at the Ayrshire prison, Robb was found to have pinched the woman on the body and pulled her hair.
The woman told the trial that people stopped her after visits at the jail and asked why she kept coming to see him.
“People used to ask me on the way out,” she said.
“They would say to me on the way out… why was I coming to visit him, why was I letting him treat me like that.
“On one occasion I was extremely upset and I was crying and two prison officers said to me ‘don’t come back.”
She said: “Nobody understands. He would end up killing me.
“He knew what he was doing to me was wrong.
“I believed that deep down, he was a good person.”
Back behind bars
Advocate Patricia Baillie explained to Sheriff Elizabeth McFarlane that Robb had already spent the equivalent of a two-year sentence in prison on remand.
She said: “He’s come before the court with a record which will be of no surprise to the court.
“He has a record which is significant but for what it’s worth, does not appear to include matters aggravated in terms of a domestic nature.
“There’s nothing I can say in respect of the matters.”
Banned from seeing ex-partners
Sheriff McFarlane jailed HMP Perth inmate Robb for three years.
She backdated his sentence to March 2021 and banned him from contacting either victim for five years.
The sheriff said: “Mr Robb, you have been found guilty of these offences by a jury of your peers and they and I have listened to two complainers giving evidence of your behaviour towards them over a period of time which was abusive, aggressive, demeaning and manipulative.
“Not only that, they have had to suffer giving evidence before these 15 people in this court this week.
“My sentence not only reflects that and the years they put them through that behaviour, I’m also taking into account your record.”
Heroin smuggling
Robb, was jailed for nine years in March 2013 for his role in a scam instigated by businessman Alan Croston.
A High Court trial heard how Croston regularly travelled from his home in Wigan to look after clients and take them to where geese and ducks were feeding in Fife.
The hunters became the hunted, however, when police set up Operation Rumba to stem the flow of hard drugs from the north-east of England into Scotland.
Undercover officers kept a watch on former miner Croston and Robb, who also worked as a goose guide.
The surveillance led to the seizure of 2kg of heroin, worth a possible £200,000 on the streets, and more than £25,000 in cash.
Robb participated in the scam alongside his father, Croston’s brother and another man.
A jury found them guilty of playing different roles in the scam.
Later in 2013, Robb was forced to forfeit £25,660 after a proceeds of crime hearing.
