A man accused of hiding alongside country lanes, footpaths and cycle tracks and invading the personal space of women taking their coronavirus daily exercise has had his court case put off until next year.
Mark Russell, who is said to have sometimes hidden in bushes alongside the rural routes, stepping out when his alleged victims passed by, was to have faced trial at Alloa Sheriff Court yesterday.
The case has now been postponed until February.
A total of seven women are said to have been targeted by Russell since the Covid-19 outbreak began.
An eighth woman is said to have been followed in the run-up to the crisis.
The incidents are alleged to have taken place at different spots near the foot of the Ochils in Clackmannanshire and on the West Fife Way cycle route from Clackmannan to Dunfermline.
Russell, 32, is accused of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person fear and alarm in the case of all eight alleged victims by “maintaining unnecessarily close proximity” to them.
The most recent charge dates from May 7 on the old Clackmannan to Dunfermline railway line bike path, where Russell is alleged to have concealed himself in bushes before staring at and pursuing two women passers-by, “knowingly failing to observe government Covid-19 social distancing guidelines” while doing so and thereafter returning to conceal himself in bushes.
It is alleged that in committing this offence he breached an undertaking he had previously given to police to stay away from “cycle paths, nature trails or secluded areas that could be construed as popular walking routes by the public”.
The earliest alleged incident apparently took place prior to the pandemic, between December 1 and January 19 when he is alleged to have “concealed himself in a country lane” at Back Road, Menstrie, stepped out when a woman was passing, and followed her, maintaining unnecessarily close proximity.
Russell, of Curlers Court, Dollar, pled not guilty to all eight charges against him when he appearing in handcuffs in the dock at Falkirk Sheriff Court in May.
