An offender who once performed a near-three-hour sex act on a Ring doorbell was cleared of pleasuring himself in front of a teenager on a busy bus to Dundee after he told a court he was just fixing a “wedgie”.
Neil Beattie was accused of touching himself indecently while maintaining eye contact with the 18-year-old on a Stagecoach bus from Arbroath.
Beattie claimed he was simply adjusting his underwear.
A trial at Dundee Sheriff Court heard how the woman, who cannot be named, felt “creeped out” by the 39-year-old.
She was sitting on the back row of the bus, which she boarded in the morning.
Beattie, wearing joggers, was at the window seat of the back row, to her right.
Giving evidence, she said: “At first he was acting normal but he started acting really weird towards me.
“He kept watching everything I was doing, reading what I was doing on my phone.
“He was smiling and waving.
“He started touching himself. It was when I turned round and looked at him that I noticed what he was doing.
“He kept moving his hand up and down and rubbing.”
‘Wedgie’
The woman said she felt “shaken up” and “sick”.
She had been messaging her friend, sitting in front of her, and the message she sent referenced a “wedgie”.
The friend told the court she did not see Beattie touch himself indecently.
Beattie, who had been in custody ahead of the trial, insisted he had been adjusting his clothing.
He said: “I am not denying I got a wedgie but the rest of it I do not believe – I pulled my pants.”
When asked by defence solicitor Linda Clark if he masturbated on the bus, Beattie said: “Certainly not.”
Sheriff Gregor Murray found Beattie, of Leonard Street in Arbroath, not guilty.
He told the accused: “Something happened on the evidence that I have.
“Your evidence was just as convincing as the complainer’s. I don’t know what happened.
“I need to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt because then it would become sexual activity. I find you not guilty.”
Ring ‘performances’
In July this year, Beattie was convicted at Perth Sheriff Court of performing solo sex acts outside a woman’s home in the early hours of the morning.
The first incident was captured on Ring doorbell footage, with Beattie said to have had his trousers around his ankles.
He told police: “I don’t normally get my willy out but I saw the camera and thought it would be like a porn movie.”
Despite being charged, he returned to the same door in Perth weeks later and carried out a near identical offence – this time lasting three hours.
Beattie was placed on a curfew for four months and made subject to the sex offenders register for five years.
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