Two teenage girls who admitted carrying out a sickening assault on a vulnerable young man hung their heads as a video recording of part of their attack was shown to Sheriff Kevin Veal at Arbroath Sheriff Court.
In a police statement the man denied doing anything wrong but conceded that he had got in to bed with Sinclair, cuddled her and put his hand on her stomach while she was still fast asleep.
Defence advocate Jonathan Crowe told the sheriff that Sharp believed her friend had been sexually assaulted and had “meted out punishment inappropriately.”
Mr Crowe said that there was “no excuse whatsoever for what Paige Sharp did that night and she feels sick at what she has done. Her behaviour was disgusting.”
Mr Crowe added, “She is profoundly sorry and wants to apologise publicly. This is the first and last time she wants to sit in a dock.
“She has mixed with the wrong crowd in Arbroath. She is an intelligent, articulate and socially competent young woman.
“If she is put down the right path, it’s not too late for her.Custody”She has spent four months in custody, has shown genuine victim empathy and reports suggest that the emphasis should be on rehabilitation rather than punishment.”
For Sinclair, agent Billy Rennie said that the assault involving the vacuum cleaner on the victim’s private parts, which had been captured on the video, had started out as more as a joke but which had got out of hand.
“She was somewhat provoked but what followed was entirely unnecessary and unfortunate for the complainer,” he said.
“It’s quite a sordid and squalid tale.
“She (Sinclair) has expressed shame in becoming involved in something like this.
“She hadn’t taken bubbles that night but had taken some valium, mostly because she was feeling unwell, and had gone to bed.
“She awoke to find an older male in her bed who had been uninvited and who confessed to touching her.
“This was the catalyst for her anger, although it doesn’t excuse what she has done.”
Sheriff Veal, who described the two girls’ actions as “almost feral,” said he would take some time to consider matters and remanded them both in custody for two days for sentence.
It appeared that neither Paige Alana Sharp (16) nor Danielle Sinclair (17), both c/o HMP Cornton Vale, could bring themselves to watch the disturbing footage captured by another witness on her mobile telephone.
It emerged that the catalyst for the incident, which was described as “sordid and squalid,” was that the victim had got into bed with a sleeping Sinclair uninvited.
The court also heard an allegation that the 21-year-old victim had originally gone to the flat to give the girls the drug mephedrone, commonly known as “bubbles.”
At a previous hearing of the case, Sharp had admitted that between March 8 and 9, at an address in Arbroath’s Emislaw Drive, she assaulted the 21-year-old man to his injury by punching him repeatedly on the head and body and setting fire to the jeans he was wearing.
Sinclair had admitted that on the same occasion she assaulted the young man to his injury by punching him repeatedly on the head, striking him on the body with metal poles or similar implements and placing the hose of a vacuum cleaner over his eye and on his private parts and switching it on.First offendersThe pair, both first offenders, had originally been charged with abducting and assaulting the man to his severe injury and danger of life.
However, those charges were later dropped from the complaint.
Procurator fiscal Lis Miller said the victim was a young man with learning difficulties who lived in supported accommodation at a homeless unit in the town.
She said that he had a “low IQ and is vulnerable,” adding that this would be “obvious to anyone engaging in conversation with him.”
He was acquainted, if not friendly, with the two accused and had gone to the flat they were at to drink and to take bubbles.
She described “a rumour” circulating within the flat that the man had behaved inappropriately towards Sinclair after she had gone to bed to sleep.