A drunk wedding guest accused of asking a man to touch her “fish taco” before seizing his wrist and pulling it towards her privates has been found not guilty of sexual assault.
Fiona Duncan, 37, was accused of licking a man on the neck, straddling him and “grinding” on him but she strenuously denied committing any crime.
The man alleged Duncan repeatedly followed him, before subjecting him to sexually inappropriate conduct at The Quay venue at Dundee’s City Quay in September 22 last year.
However, photographs were produced which the presiding sheriff said “seem to fly on the face of the evidence of the complainer”.
Complainer’s evidence
Giving evidence at Dundee Sheriff Court, the man said: “She licked my neck from bottom to top, up the way.
“It was a bit uncomfortable. I passed it off at that point as her just being drunk, I didn’t know what else to do.
“She kept following me and kept coming for me.
“I was moving away as much as I could due to the way she was acting and being.
“It was making me feel uncomfortable.”
He said she sat next to him at a table.
“She was pulling up her dress and she grabbed my wrist at that point and told me to touch her fish taco.
“I looked away and tried to pull my arm away.”
Videos and pictures
Defence solicitor Theo Finlay questioned that version of events and produced photographs and videos of the alleged victim posing and “pouting” with Duncan – who, the court heard, compared herself to Kim Kardashian.
In a brief video clip, the man is seen with his tongue out before Duncan appears to say: “Stop trying to tongue me”.
Mr Finlay asked: “This was a busy room and there must have been a number of people in close proximity.
“You are indicating and alleging she behaved in such a way – such a flagrant way, such an offensive way – in full and open view?”
When asked if he engaged in “playful or intimate” behaviour with Duncan, the man replied “absolutely not”.
Another wedding guest, Jade Jackson, claimed she witnessed Duncan straddle the man, who she described as being “shocked and stunned”.
Mr Finlay had made a submission here was no case to answer due to the Crown’s failure to adequately prove a sexual assault had occurred but this was repelled by Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith.
Not guilty
Social care officer Duncan took the witness stand and admitted being drunk but not to the point of being incoherent or paralytic.
She claimed to have sat side-on to the man and said the allegations were “categorically untrue”.
Sheriff Niven-Smith prefaced his verdict by referencing the varying reactions of different people to being sexually assaulted, including fighting back, running away or “simply freezing”.
He said: “The complainer’s position is that he’s simply putting on a brave face and getting on with it.
“It’s perhaps rather telling that we have a defence production where the complainer is leaning in with his arms around the waist of the accused, posing.
“That would seem to fly on the face of the evidence of the complainer.
“The images produced cause me to pause, to have a knot in my stomach and seriously doubt the veracity of his evidence.”
Duncan, of Dundee, was found not guilty of sexually assault, which led to cheers and claps from people supporting her in the public gallery.
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