A pensioner has been placed on under supervision and on the Sex Offenders Register for sexually assaulting a woman with a phobia about kissing.
Antonio Ferraro, 67, from Balmullo, was found guilty of sexually assaulting the woman while she tried to carry out her job in a Fife home on November 26 last year.
Italian-born Ferraro admitted kissing the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, but claimed the act had been consensual.
However, the court was told he was already aware of her phobia and he was found guilty by Sheriff Paul Brown.
He was placed under social work supervision for six months and on the Sex Offenders Register for the same period at Dundee Sheriff Court.
The woman told the court said she had been feeling unwell and Ferraro encouraged her to sit on a sofa, closed the door and grabbed her head and kissed her on the lips.
Giving evidence, Ferraro claimed: “I used to kiss her every day, it was in a playful way.
“I did kiss her on the lips. It was not French or anything. A kiss is not really the end of the world.”
Swimming in drugs
A pair of cannabis farmers who converted Forfar swimming pool into a massive drugs operation have been jailed. Albanian illegal immigrants Hajri Musa and Gerald Daci were discovered tending a crop of drugs worth nearly £200,000 inside the abandoned building.
Buckie bash
A Dundee drunk swung at a Fife couple’s front door with a Buckfast bottle when they refused to buy him drink.
Buckie-swigging Josh Bray asked the residents at the Queen Margaret Drive in Glenrothes to buy him more booze and clubbed the door with his tonic wine bottle when they declined.
He then made his way into town and slapped a stranger outside the Kingdom Centre.
While still at Unicorn Way, he began acting in a threatening or abusive way, shouting, swearing, using offensive language and being aggressive.
He was soon taken to Kirkcaldy police station where he spat at an officer.
At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, he admitted vandalism, two assaults and acting in a manner “likely to cause fear or alarm” all on April 28 this year.
Bray, of Strathmartine Road, was ordered to complete 135 hours of unpaid work and placed on a 10pm to 6am curfew for four months.
The bathroom fitter and part-time hairdresser’s solicitor Calum Harris said Bray has diagnoses of ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, ODD, OCD and possibly bipolar disorder.
In 2022, topless Bray had to be sedated by authorities after drunkenly hurling masonry from a Dundee allotment.
And in 2018, he was jailed for more than three years after spraying a police officer in the face with CS gas, before trying to grab for a meat cleaver as the half-blinded constable tried to arrest him.
While behind bars in February 2020 at HMP Perth, Bray was assaulted by a “prison bully” who clubbed him over the head three times with a pool cue.
Crowbar and cleaver
James Donnelly, 41, bludgeoned his pal with a crowbar, before striking him with a meat cleaver, during a vicious, drug-fuelled attack at a Dundee multi in which he stole a bus pass and cash. The man was later found battered, bruised and collapsed on his sofa by his housing officer.
Off the rails
A 39-year-old man has appeared in court to admit being threatening or abusive on a train journey between Edinburgh and Inverkeithing and at Inverkeithing train station.
Sean McGowan, of Somerville Street, Burntisland, also pled guilty to assaulting a police custody officer by flicking blood at him at Dunfermline police station.
Both offences took place on August 9 last year, Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard.
On the train journey and at the train station McGowan acted aggressively, removed a water bottle from someone’s hands and drank its contents, made violent threats, refused to leave the train, and attempted to enter the train with force.
Sentencing was deferred until June 26 to obtain background reports and McGowan’s bail was continued.
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