A business boss who sat in his car in a busy street with his trousers undone as young children in school uniform walked past has been fined after a sheriff rejected his claim he was searching for “a bug” that had bitten his privates.
Civil engineer James Lewis-Booth, 37, who went to a top Perthshire independent school Glenalmond College, was found guilty of public indecency after he was spotted performing a solo sex act by a man checking whether it was bin day.
Lewis Brannan, 26, told Stirling Sheriff Court as he looked out the window of his second floor flat on Upper Craigs, Stirling, his attention was drawn to Lewis-Booth’s Volkswagen Touareg in a loading bay.
Lewis-Booth, who was later found to have been browsing pictures of “local escorts”, was bracing his phone against the dashboard with his left hand.
Watched for 40 minutes
Mr Brannan said his trousers were unbuckled and he was carrying out a solo sex act with his other hand.
Mr Brannan, a contract cleaner, said: “I went to get a glass of water because I felt sick and I phoned the police.”
He added he sat down at the window with a cigarette to calm himself and continued to watch Lewis-Booth for 40 minutes until officers arrived.
The court heard the incident happened between 2 and 3 pm on Monday September 7, 2020.
Mr Brannan said: “There were children on the street in their primary school uniforms — that was what stressed me most.
“At one point there was a woman standing in front of his car, between her boot and his bonnet, getting something out of her car and he continued to masturbate when she was two metres in front of him.”
When Lewis-Booth’s explanation was put to him, Mr Brannan replied: “I don’t think it takes 40 minutes to find an insect in your trousers.”
Picture to prove bug bite
Lewis-Booth, a father-of-one, of Killearn, claimed he had been on his phone answering calls and emails on a “particularly busy day” when he was bitten or stung by an insect.
“I felt there was a bug in my trousers.
“It was extremely painful. My instinctive reaction was to try and find out what had bitten me so I decided to unzip my trousers and have a look.
“Unfortunately I didn’t find anything.”
His solicitor, Harry Couchlin, produced a photograph to the court of Lewis-Booth’s penis taken two days after the event, purporting to show the aftermath of a blister.
No registration requirement
Prosecutor India Maclean said Lewis-Booth’s “strange bug explanation” was “ludicrous”.
Miss Maclean, the depute fiscal, said: “In my submission the bug explanation is not one that can be taken seriously.
“It is an explanation so outrageous and unlikely it can be disregarded.”
Finding Lewis-Booth guilty and fining his £1500, Sheriff Wylllie Robertson ruled it was “inherently unlikely” that Lewis-Booth had been “searching for some sort of bug”.
He said he “didn’t take anything” from the photograph of Lewis-Booth’s penis.
He ruled, however, that there was no requirement for Lewis-Booth’s name to be added to the sex offenders’ register because the offence had been committed inside the car rather than on the open street, so there had been no element of exhibitionism.
Lewis-Booth now runs an earth-moving business and has been a director of a string of Scottish firms.
Outside court, he refused to comment to a reporter.
