A group of teenagers stopped a semi-naked man chasing guising children before he turned on them in a horrific Halloween incident in Fife, a court has heard.
A trial at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard from one witness she and a group of friends were out at the town’s Rabbit Braes on Halloween night in 2018.
She said as they approached steps at the beauty spot she saw the man.
“We saw a man chasing children who were out trick or treating,” she said.
“I shouted ‘oi’ and he stopped under the lamppost.
“He had dark clothing on but his trousers were round his ankles.
“He was facing away from us and then he turned around.”
She said the group had seen the man’s bottom and genitals.
“We were panicking, we didn’t know what to do when he started to move towards us.”
She said they ran off to a relative’s home.
The man was later identified in a police line up by one of her friends as Gavin Morrison, 44, who is on trial accused of a string of sex offences across a seven-year period in Central Fife.
Desperate flight from ‘flasher’
The witness said the group had to bang frantically on the garden gate before the relative was able to let them in to safety.
The relative described the trio as “hysterical”.
Asked how the incident had affected her, the witness said: “I had quite a lot of nightmares. I had sleep paralysis.
“It ruined me for years and is quite traumatising now.”
Another girl from the group recalled how one of her friends had tripped and fallen as they ran from the man.
The woman, who was 15 at the time, told the court: “We just started screaming.
“(The relative’s house) has a little gate you can open to get to the woods – that was the quickest way to get away from him.
“(Friend) fell trying to get away quickly.
“We were banging and shouting (at the gate).”
She agreed with defence agent Lewis Kennedy the incident had been “over in a flash” but said it was “highly unlikely“ she had picked the wrong person in the police identity parade.
She said: “It’s just something you never forget”.
Followed from youth club
A women targeted in a separate alleged incident in Cowdenbeath told the court how she was followed home from a youth club in June 2019 by a man with his penis hanging out of his jeans.
She said she was too scared to tell her mother about the incident, fearing she would be stopped from going to the club.
However, she was forced to confess after a friend found out.
She said she was too scared to walk home alone now, relying on lifts from relatives.
Denies all charges
The court previously heard from one complainer – 15 at the time – who said she and a friend were at Rabbit Braes in Kirkcaldy when a man, naked except for sunglasses, a snood and shoes, approached them while masturbating.
She managed to film him before he ran off.
Others said they had been approached by a flasher in cowboy boots while walking to the shops.
One was accosted twice and the other said she positively identified Morrison to police and still suffers “flashbacks” in which she sees his face.
Morrison, of Citron Glebe, Kirkcaldy, is variously accused of exposing his penis, masturbating in front of victims, committing an act of public indecency and conducting himself in a disorderly manner.
All the offences are said to have taken place in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, from 2015 up until October 2022.
Morrison denies all the charges and the trial continues.
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