A former Labour councillor in Fife has pled not guilty to allegations he groomed a teenage girl over a period of a year.
David Graham, of Grieve Street in Methilhill, appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court and denied the trio of charges he faces.
The 42-year-old is alleged to have communicated indecently with the teenager and coerced her to view sexual images, to have engaged in unlawful sexual activity with her and to have intentionally met her to have unlawful sexual activity.
The charges allege the girl was aged 14 and 15 during the period, spanning between August 2022 and 2023.
Court papers allege Graham sent her images of his penis and messages containing sexual comments and caused her to send sexual images.
He is accused of touching the girl’s private parts and performing sex acts on her and causing her to perform a sex act on him.
The offending is said to have taken place at various locations including multiple Fife bowing clubs, a cafe in Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh Zoo and in in a car in Fife, Edinburgh and Ayr.
The girl cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Graham will stand trial at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court on July 15.
Abuse campaigner guilty
A high-profile domestic abuse activist from Perthshire has been found guilty of carrying out a shocking campaign of child abuse. Nicola Murray was found guilty after a trial of 10 charges and is now on the sex offenders register. Murray set up the Brodie’s Trust support group for women who have lost babies through domestic violence or forced termination.
Sick pics
A Fife pervert has been placed on the sex offenders register after police found evidence of sick child abuse material on his phone.
Kieron Lawson appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to admit taking or making the twisted files between May 20 and August 14 last year.
The court heard police received information indecent images of children had been accessed at Lawson’s Dunfermline home.
Officers were granted a search warrant and arrived at around 9am on August 14.
They found Lawson and another person in the living room.
As the police began to explain why they were there, Lawson interrupted and said: “This is nothing to do with her – it’s me, I’ll give you my phone.”
Officers seized the Samsung device and analysis showed it had contained 12 illicit images, inaccessible by the time it was examined.
Three of the images were considered the most graphic kind and all depicted girls aged from infants to 12.
The court heard one of the images showed a girl, around 12 years old, being abused by an adult.
The creation dates of the files ranged up until the morning police attended.
Sheriff John MacRitchie deferred sentencing for reports and placed the 30-year-old on the sex offenders register.
‘Urban hunter’
Fife’s notorious “urban hunter” child rapist was behind a rural crime bloodbath which resulted in the slaughter of a cat, hares, deer, a fox, a heron and other birds. Brandon Robb admitted killing the animals using a catapult and his lurcher dogs in an autumn 2022 crime spree which came to light when one of his trophy videos began circulating on TikTok. He will be sentenced after he is dealt with by a High Court judge for outstanding child rape cases.
Bunglers, not burglars
A bungling Arbroath pair have admitted mistakenly clambering through an unsuspecting family’s kitchen window in the dead of night.
William White and Scott Cargill both appeared at Forfar Sheriff Court to admit threatening or abusive behaviour on July 5 last year.
The pair admitted, while acting together, they forced entry to the home on Provost Chapel Road, Arbroath, engaged with a householder and left through a different window.
Prosecutor Sam Craib explained one resident could hear people outside asking “is this the right house?” at around 12.45am.
When he checked out his window, nobody could be seen but as he walked through his hallway, he heard a door being tried.
He woke the woman inside the property, who went downstairs and found both men had climbed through her kitchen window.
After leaving through a different kitchen window, they were soon apprehended by police and both told officers they were not planning stealing.
Solicitor Billy Rennie said: “Mr Cargill’s mother’s house was nearby.
“He stumbled into the wrong house. It clearly caused alarm.
“This appears to have been, on the face of it, a genuine error by them.”
Smith, 39, of Glenogil Drive in Arbroath, was placed under supervision for six months
and also admonished for stealing £367 worth of alcohol from the Kirriemuir Co-op the day before and later breaching a bail curfew.
Cargill, of Millfield Road in Arbroath, appearing in court on his 50th birthday was admonished.
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