Latest Offenders Dunbartonshire

Description

A woman with multiple sclerosis has criticized a money and travel influencer who sexually assaulted her and avoided jail.

Curtis Heighes, 25, boasts thousands of followers for videos of his global travels, while offering fitness, lifestyle, and finance advice as a broadband salesman and amateur boxer.

The Record reveals Heighes, from Bearsden near Glasgow, as a sex predator who targeted a vulnerable woman during a broadband sales visit to her Paisley home. He denied the November 2023 abuse but was convicted after trial.

His victim, who cannot be named, warned others after he walked free: “It makes me feel sick knowing how easily someone like that can hide in plain sight.”

Over 60,000 follow his Curtis Unchained accounts, where he boasts of trips and boxing successes. While awaiting trial, he posted from Morocco joking about sex and holding what appeared to be a machine gun, plus camel rides in Egypt and sunshine breaks.

Heighes was spared jail at Paisley Sheriff Court due to his role as full-time carer for his elderly parents. His victim fumed: “What’s made this even harder is seeing the wider picture.

“Knowing he was being portrayed as a carer, while also knowing he was able to spend significant time abroad, makes it feel like that was used to make him look better and lessen the consequences.

“To me, it feels like something that benefited him in court, rather than reflecting the reality of who he is or what he’s done. That sense of injustice has been incredibly painful.

“Seeing the pictures of him online with guns, the Morocco posts where he jokes about sex, and the Curtis Unchained persona has also been deeply disturbing.

“That image is completely at odds with how he presented himself to me – and completely at odds with the harm he caused behind closed doors.”

The jury convicted him of kissing her, placing her on the bed, lying on top of her, and performing a sex act without consent.

Last month, he received 300 hours of unpaid work, an eight-month restriction of liberty order with an electronic tag and curfew from 8pm to 6:30am, a 10-year non-harassment order barring contact, and five years on the sex offenders register.

Now a property investment broker, he is banned from entering clients’ homes unaccompanied.

Description

A CHARITIES lawyer exposed by The Scottish Sun as a paedophile was spared jail.

Alan Eccles, 44, was tagged for eight months and handed 300 hours of unpaid work as well as three years’ supervision.

We told how the sicko shared child sex abuse images and chatted online with other beasts about molesting kids.

Eccles, from Bearsden, near Glasgow, also shared an intimate pic of a woman between October and November 2023.

His lawyer John Scullion KC told Paisley Sheriff Court: “The offences took place when his mental health was bad. He accepts full responsibility.”

Passing sentence, Sheriff Bruce Erroch told first offender Eccles: "You are a mature and plainly intelligent man who made a deliberate decision to act as you did.

"You must have known the risks involved. Significant psychological harm was caused by your crimes.

"Such crimes are not victimless crimes. I’ve considered the aggravating factors of all of your offences. 

"Your behaviour was, in short, despicable. You are a man of good nature who appears in the court without any criminal record and you have carried out good public service. 

"Taking all the relevant factors into account I intend to reduce the prison sentence to a high-level community payback order. Such measures will be put in places to protect the public."

The perv will also be on the sex offenders register for three years.

He is a specialist in third sector legal issues and has assisted a number of charities. 

After Eccles’ vile crimes came to light, his profile was scrubbed from the Law Society of Scotland website.

His account on business networking site LinkedIn was also removed.

Description

A pervert who sexually abused two young boys was jailed today for one year.

David Exley, 43, preyed on the six and nine-year-olds at his home in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, between July 2022 and January 2023.

Construction worker Exley repeatedly removed one of the boys' underwear while he was asleep.

He also pulled down the underwear of both boys and intimately touched them.

Exley denied the allegations and claimed the six-year-old victim "rehearsed" his evidence to police officers.

However, first offender Exley was found guilty by Sheriff David Taylor at Glasgow Sheriff Court of two charges of sexual assault.

The sheriff said: "The similarities in time and place and the circumstances of the sexual assaults were such that each of the boys' evidence corroborated each other."

Sheriff Taylor put Exley on the sex offenders register for 10 years at today's sentencing.

Exley previously told the court in his evidence that there was one occasion when he did pull down one of the children's underwear.

Prosecutor Darren Harty asked why he did it and Exley replied: "It was just a bit of fun between me and the children."

One of the boys told the police officers in an interview that Exley removed his underwear while he was asleep.

Description

A SEX attacker from Bonhill who raped three different people in Dumbarton and the Vale is facing a lengthy spell behind bars.

Paul Callanin was found guilty of preying on three different victims in Alexandria, Balloch, Dumbarton and Renton between 2005 and 2013.

The first woman was targeted at different addresses in Alexandria.

Jurors heard how Callanin, 35, pushed the woman onto a bed, held her down and raped her.

The second woman was attacked in a car park in Desire Nightclub in Balloch on Christmas Day 2011.

Callanin is said to have also bitten her during the incident and shoved her onto the ground.

He the raped again to her injury that same day at a flat in Renton.

The final victim was initially subjected to a sex attack at a photography studio in Dumbarton.

Callanin went on to rape them, also at a flat in Renton.

Callanin, of Broomhill Crescent, had denied the accusations during a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

But, he was convicted of lewd and libidinous conduct against the first victim as well as a separate charge of raping her.

He was found guilty of two rape charges involving the second woman.

Callanin was also convicted of sexual assault and raping the third victim.

Judge William Summers adjourned the case for reports until March 9, when Callanin will appear at the High Court in Aberdeen.

Description