A man spanked a teenager so hard during a sexual assault in a Fife hostel he left imprints on her skin.
Sinisa Tumbas, 42, targeted the girl at the Woodside Hotel in Broad Street, Cowdenbeath, on September 7 last year.
His victim, then aged 16, told a trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court Tumbas locked her in a room there and started tickling her, then smacked her bottom “two or three times”.
Tumbas, of Hyndloup Terrace, Cardenden, denied locking the door and sexually assaulting the teenager, claiming he only pushed her away on the hip with two hands.
Barged into hostel room
Giving evidence, the girl said she and two friends were joking around with hair removal cream at the temporary accommodation before Tumbas, also known as ‘Simon,’ staggered along the corridor smelling of alcohol.
The young woman, now 17, told the trial: “He said ‘I will deal with her’, in a laughing way.
“He was talking about me”.
She ran into someone’s room, unsure about the extent to which Tumbas was joking.
The woman said ‘Simon’ barged past two of her friends outside and came into the room and “locked the door behind him” from the inside.
She continued: “I think I was on the bed at that point.
“He started tickling me on my upper body, on my sides and my stomach.
“And then he proceeded to slap my bum a good couple of times and left me with a good couple of handprints.
“I was wearing shorts and a jumper.”
Handprints
The teenager said she was struck on the bottom “two or three times” with “quite a bit of force”.
She continued: “It was very sore.
“I let out a bit of a yelp but did not really say anything because I was too uncomfortable.
“I don’t like confrontation.”
After the assault, she said Tumbas returned to tickling her, before staggering back to the door, which he struggled to open.
She said she was shocked and curled up, crying, on the bed.
She was left with “a couple of red handprints,” visible in a photograph shown in court.
Ready to break down door
Two of her friends – a woman and a man – confirmed Tumbas entered the room with the girl and the locked the door.
From the corridor outside, the female witness said she heard laughing and giggling then two slapping noises and crying from the girl.
The man told the trial he picked up a fire extinguisher in case he needed to break down the door.
Tumbas emerged and the male witness recalled him saying, “I am done”.
Both witnesses said the woman was upset when they saw her afterwards.
Accused’s evidence rejected
Giving evidence, unemployed Tumbas claimed he ran after the girl to get the hair removal cream, then started tickling her.
He said she was tickling him before he “pushed her away” with two hands because he had “had enough”.
He said at no point was the door locked and denied any suggestion of being drunk, as he only had two cans of Stella Artois.
At the end of the two-day trial, Sheriff Garry Sutherland said the Crown witnesses were credible and reliable and found Tumbas guilty of sexual assault.
Sentencing on was adjourned until December 18 and he was placed on the Sex Offenders Register meantime.
He was acquitted of a second allegation that he intentionally exposed his genitals in a sexual manner to another woman.
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