An army guardsman has been convicted of sexually assaulting two women and seizing them by the neck after picking them up in his car in Fife.
Kieran Bremner attacked his victims in his Mercedes on separate occasions between December 2022 and January last year after speaking to them on Snapchat.
The 20-year-old had denied the sexual and physical assaults but was found guilty after a two-day trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.
Bremner, who is from Droverhall Avenue in Crossgates but based at Catterick garrison, England, was put on the sex offenders register ahead of sentencing next month.
Asked for ‘sexual things’
Both women, now aged 18, gave evidence from behind a screen.
One said Bremner had picked her up from home one night after she messaged him asking for a lift to buy a vape.
She said he drove to a car park in Crossgates and asked her for “sexual things,” including kissing, and that she refused and asked him to go to a garage in Cowdenbeath.
The young woman said she then gave him money to buy the vape, which he did.
She said: “My window was slightly down.
“He has dropped the change through the car window and it’s landed in between my thighs.
“I think it was maybe £4.
“He has gone into the driver seat.
“I reached to go get it (the money) and I said ‘it’s fine’ and he said ‘no, I will get it’ and put his hand down to grab the change”.
She said his hand then “brushed” her private parts over her clothing.
Asked by prosecutor Catherine Stevenson if this was an accident, the young woman said: “I am not sure, but if I said I would get it and he said he has gone to get it after I said I would get it, I take it that it was on purpose”.
Grabbed woman by neck
She said Bremner asked for a kiss again and she said “no” and that his attitude seemed to change.
The woman continued: “I am not sure if it was flirtatious or being aggressive, but he had grabbed me by the neck.
“We were still parked at the garage sitting in the car.
“I have tried to get his hand off me but his grip was too tight and I think he noticed I was trying to get him off and he let go. He noticed I was not joking and he let go and I said ‘take me home'”.
She said he drove off but, while stopped at temporary traffic lights in Cowdenbeath, he tried to kiss her again and she declined.
Wouldn’t take no for an answer
A second woman told the trial Bremner picked her up in his car and later tried touching her private parts over her clothing when they were parked.
The woman recalled saying “no” because it made her uncomfortable and that he could not “take no for an answer” and “got angry” before driving off and taking her home.
A few days later he picked her up again and drove to “the bridges” and Fife Leisure Park in Dunfermline, the woman said.
She said: “He started strangling me, out of nowhere.
“I could not speak because someone’s hands were round my neck.
“I told him I did not like it; I did not like him grabbing me round the neck”.
The woman said that when at the leisure park, Bremner was angry because she was not speaking and he got out the car, came round to her door and tried to drag her out by the legs.
She said she walked away and that he drove up and apologised, she got back in the car and he dropped her off at a friend’s house.
Giving evidence during the trial, Bremner, who says he has been in the Army nearly three years, denied most of the sexual contact and claimed some parts of it were consensual.
He also denied the physical assaults.
Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said both women were credible and reliable witnesses and that he was less impressed by Bremner’s evidence, which was “often interspersed with lack of memory about matters”.
The sheriff said he could only convict if the evidence of each complainer mutually corroborates.
He said: “There were remarkable similarities in character, circumstances and time to bind them together”.
Sheriff Robertson found Bremner guilty of the two sexual assaults and two physical assaults.
The sheriff deferred sentencing until August 7 to obtain background reports and Bremner’s bail has been continued.
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