A Forfar couple have been convicted of having sex in broad daylight in their communal garden.
Clive Weatherhogg, 49 and Kirsty Jones, 34, were convicted of public indecency.
Both accused claimed Jones had been sunbathing in a small, light-coloured bikini and Weatherhogg had dropped down to cuddle her.
They said his jeans had possibly slipped after he unbuckled his belt and trouser button due to stomach pain.
This was rejected by Sheriff Derek Reekie after a trial at Forfar Sheriff Court and he will sentence both later this summer.
The offence was Jones’ first conviction but Weatherhogg is part-way through a decade-long placement on the Sex Offenders Register after being jailed for 18 months for orchestrating a revenge porn attack.
Stunned neighbours
Neighbour Wendy McVicar told the trial she saw the pair sitting on a garden bench outside their home in the town’s Fruithill when she was bringing in her washing on March 25.
The 44-year-old cleaner said, shortly afterwards, they again caught her eye from her window.
“I saw that couple having sex.
“She was lying on the bottom. He was in between her.
“Her legs were in the air. They were lying next to the bench on the padding off a sun lounger.
“She was naked. He had a top on – his jeans were down to his ankles.
“He was in between her legs. Her legs were in the air and his bum was going up and down.”
When asked by fiscal depute Matthew Kerr how many times she saw Weatherhogg’s “bum go up and down,” she replied: “I didn’t count. More than once.”
She said that afterwards, Jones sat naked on the bench for five minutes before getting dressed and the pair had been undeterred by a neighbouring tenant entering the garden.
‘That is some hug, I tell you’
Miss McVicar said she then phoned fellow neighbour Irene McLean, 76, to confirm what she was seeing.
Retired canteen manageress Mrs McLean backed up Miss McVicar’s position, from her window around 35 metres away.
She said: “I was just sitting in my living room… when my mobile phone rang.
“I had just been out sunbathing.
“There they were and here he was with his buttocks shown and her legs stuck out.
“It wasn’t a very pleasant scene, I have to say.
“His trousers were down to his ankles.
“That’s what was presented in front of me.
“She was lying down and he was lying on top of her.
“I didn’t realise at the time but when she got up, she had nothing on.
“They were having sex – that’s the only conclusion I could come up with.
“They were certainly locked together.”
In reference to the suggestion that the pair were merely cuddling, Mrs McLean said: “I have never seen anybody hug anybody with b****cks shown,” before amending to “buttocks shown.”
“That is some hug, I tell you.”
She explained both witnesses had a “running commentary” over the phone as the co-accuseds continued in the afternoon sun.
Denial
Both accused gave evidence it was the first time they had been able to see each other for some time due to shift patterns.
Weatherhogg, a lorry driver who transports live chickens for 2 Sisters, explained he had returned from working a nightshift.
He said: “She was lying down on the sunbed.
“All I did was give Kirsty a cuddle. I was fully clothed.
“We hadn’t seen each other for nearly two weeks. I moved off the bench. I was lying on top of her.
“I wasn’t aware of my buttocks being bare.”
Jones insisted she had been wearing a bikini.
She said: “I put it on to discreetly sunbathe in the corner.
“There was nothing of a sexual nature going on.”
Sheriff Reekie rejected their evidence and ordered reports ahead of sentencing on August 4.
Previous revenge porn plot
Weatherhogg, then of Cupar, was sentenced to six years in prison when he was convicted by jurors of coercing a woman into having filmed hotel liaisons with a stranger before sending the video to the victim’s sister as her family sat down to Christmas dinner.
He set up a series of encounters for the woman and a man called Edward Amobi, who he found through an adult website, over the course of a year.
Labelled as “odious,” Weatherhogg sent a seedy video to the victim’s sister on December 25 2014.
The jury took 95 minutes after a five-day trial to find him guilty of coercing the woman into having sex with the man and sending the “revenge porn” video.
At Dundee Sheriff Court he admitted behaving in a threatening and abusive manner by sending the videos without her consent.
However, following a miscarriage of justice finding, the conviction was quashed in the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh in 2017.
The convictions were overturned and Weatherhogg’s sentence was reduced to 18 months behind bars and ten years on the Sex Offenders Register.
