A Fife dad avoided the Sex Offenders Register after his bottom-grabbing assaults on two women in a Dunfermline pub were deemed non-sexual.
David Young “slapped and squeezed” one woman’s buttock after she brushed off his advances in the city’s Jokers bar at Hospital Hill.
The 30-year-old later confronted another woman and “spun her round” on two occasions and grabbed her rear end.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard the women – both aged in their 20s – were left extremely upset by the assaults on February 6 this year.
Young had initially faced sexual assault allegations under section 3 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, but guilty pleas to amended charges of common assault were accepted by the prosecution before he was due to go on trial.
Victims ‘stunned’ and in tears
Procurator fiscal depute Jill Currie told the court Young had approached one of the women from behind at the bar and put his arms round her and asked how she was.
The fiscal depute said: “She instantly moved away to create space but the accused followed her, walked past her, doubled back and went walking past her again and, in doing so, slapped and squeezed her left buttock and thereafter carried on walking.
“She confronted him about this and was seen to be upset and he denied anything had occurred at this time.”
The court heard this woman was left in tears.
The fiscal depute said Young’s other victim had seen him “drunk” and approaching several women throughout the night and had tried to approach her on “several occasions”.
The woman made it clear to him his attention was not sought.
At one point she walked towards the bar area and was confronted by Young, who was standing near a pillar.
The fiscal depute continued: “He grabbed her arm and spun her round to get her attention and spun her round again, and this really shocked her.
“She attempted to push the accused away but he grabbed her left buttock and right hip.”
Ms Currie said the woman was left “stunned” by his actions.
‘Mortified’
Young, of Dunfermline’s Inchgarvie Crescent, appeared in the dock to plead guilty to assaulting the two women in February this year.
Defence lawyer Stephen Morrison used case law to argue, in this context, Young’s behaviour did not demonstrate a significant sexual aspect that would merit someone requiring to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for the protection of the public.
The solicitor stressed although his client’s conduct was criminal, he has no previous convictions of this nature.
Mr Morrison said Young, a depot manager, was “mortified” by his “out of character” behaviour that night.
The lawyer said although alcohol is no excuse for the offending, Young had consumed “a lot of lager” that evening, having been out earlier with friends watching football.
Mr Morrison said: “By the time the first incident happened it was round about midnight and the second incident was shortly after, by which time he had had something like nine pints of lager.”
Fined and compensation
Sheriff David Hall told Young these were serious matters for which he had to think carefully about placing him on the Register.
The sheriff said: “To assault both women in the way you did is clearly simply not acceptable and in grabbing their buttocks in the way you did, while that has to be condemned and amounts to common law assault, it does not seem to me it has a sufficiently large sexual component to bring section 3… you will not be placed on the Sex Offenders Register.”
Sheriff Hall fined Young a total of £900 for his offending and made a compensation order of £500 – £250 to each of his victims.
