Latest Offenders Shetland

Description

A sex offender who assaulted a woman indecently as she slept has been ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.

Iain Charlton, 36, from Tripwell, Brough, Whalsay, was placed on a community payback order with a supervision requirement for 18 months when he appeared for sentence at Lerwick Sheriff Court yesterday.

He will remain on the sex offenders list for the duration of the order.

Charlton previously admitted rubbing his hands up his victims back and unhooking her bra as she slept at an address in the towns St Magnus Street.

He had been at a party and was keen on the woman, although that interest was not reciprocated.

The woman, on becoming aware of him in the room, felt unable to say anything. She rolled out of the bed and landed on the floor, before running out of the room for help.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said Charlton had struggled to come to terms with the incident, although he accepted he had committed the offence.

He said the incident was not prolonged, adding Charlton had left the woman alone once she had made clear his actions had not been consented.

Sheriff Marion MacDonald warned Charlton: This must have been a very upsetting incident for the woman in this case.

Description

TWO Shetland teenagers were placed on the sex offenders register at Lerwick Sheriff Court over their inappropriate behaviour towards young girls.

Sixteen year old James Leaper, of 14 Maidenfield, Mossbank, pled guilty to making verbal and written sexual comments to an 11 year old girl between 1 July and 21 October last year at Lerwicks Harbour Street and elsewhere.

He also admitted offering to supply the same girl with cannabis on 1 or 2 September last year.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said Leaper was immature and lacked self esteem and had tried to make up for it by trying to impress people with acts of bravado.

Mr Allan added that even though he had been encouraged to act this way, it was blindingly obvious his actions were inappropriate. Despite this he posed no underlying risk to young people.

His agent said Leaper had been excluded from school as a result of the offences, but had been co-operating with various agencies to help him with his personal issues and continuing his education to find employment.

Sheriff Philip Mann told Leaper he was old enough to understand his actions were entirely wrong and inappropriate, and warned that such behaviour could have a long lasting effect on young females.

Sentencing him to 240 hours community service and a one year supervised community payback order, the sheriff added: Offering to supply an 11 year old is serious in the extreme. I shudder to think what might have happened if she had accepted that offer.

The sheriff also handed a nine month supervised community payback order without unpaid work to 17 year old Declan Harrison-Ames, of New Craigielea, Seafield Road, Lerwick.

The teenager pled guilty to sexually assaulting three girls aged 13 and 14 by touching them sexually, and making sexual comments to one of the 14 year olds.

The offences took place on Lerwicks Commercial Street and Viking Bus Station between 20 December and 14 January.

However the court heard that Harrison-Ames suffered from a condition that substantially mitigated his actions, and that the offences had not been overtly sexual.

Both men must remain on the sex offenders register for the length of their community payback orders.

Description

A man who went into a womans bedroom and performed a sex act in her bed has been spared a jail term.

Instead Peter Hall, 24, of Ladies Drive in Lerwick, was ordered to wear a tag for 12 months when he appeared for sentence today at Lerwick Sheriff Court.

Hall was also handed a three year community payback order and told to remain on the sex offenders register during that time. He has also been banned from entering Sandveien, where the offence took place, and warned not to commit any new offences.

Sentence had been deferred on Hall after he disturbed a bed and stole clothes and photographs from a house in February.

The woman and her partner were in a neighbours house at the time. They dialled 999 after seeing Hall through a window in their own bedroom.

Inside the house kitchen cupboards and the fridge were left open and items of the womans clothing were left lying on the bedroom floor. It emerged Hall had fled the house wearing one of the womans dresses. Challenged later, he claimed the clothing was actually chefs whites belonging to his mother.

Hall had later landed in trouble again when he failed to keep social work appointments. He was then kept in custody until todays hearing.

Sheriff Graeme Napier said the question of whether Hall could be trusted with his liberty was a balancing act.

He said Hall was a high risk offender who would cost tens of thousands of pounds for the community to monitor if he was spared custody.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said Hall would also prove expensive if he was locked up in prison. Hall, he said, was keen to get to the bottom of his behaviour, and was willing to co-operate.

He added Hall had served the equivalent of a two-month sentence since he was taken to Craiginches, where he had been locked up for 23 hours a day for his own protection.

Mr Allan said he had made clear to Hall what would happen if he failed in any of his objectives.

In the end the sheriff was persuaded Hall could be spared a prison term.

He told him: There is no guarantee you would come out of a prison sentence having addressed the issues you face, whereas if you dont address them you will be going to custody.

Description

A PEEPING tom who admitted planting a secret camera at his work to film female colleagues on the toilet is to be supervised by the court for the next 12 months.

Fish factory worker Robert Leask will also have to carry out 66 hours of community service and will be placed on the sex offenders register for one year.

The 50 year old, from Huxter, on the isle of Whalsay, must also pay a 240 fine after he failed to present himself at Lerwick police station twice in July to have his name placed on the register.

Last month Leask pled guilty to hiding a USB camera in the communal toilet at Blueshell Mussels packing factory at Sparl, near Brae, on 22 February this year.

A female worker found the camera wedged between pipes next to the sink in the domestic-style lavatory. She handed the device in to her manager, who saw Leask adjusting its position when she viewed its contents on her computer.

The police were called and Leask denied all knowledge of the device until he was told that he had been caught on camera himself.

Sheriff Graeme Napier had deferred sentence until Wednesday and placed Leask on the sex offenders register, but he got himself into more trouble when he failed to present himself at Lerwick police station.

On Wednesday he pled guilty to both offences, but his motives were no clearer after Leask failed to give social workers or his solicitor Tommy Allan any explanation for his behaviour.

Sheriff Napier described him as a hard working person whose actions had been a gross intrusion of privacy.

He added: Its difficult, as a male, to appreciate what the impact would be on the female victims who were intended to be victims of this offending.

However the sheriff said it would be inappropriate to send him to jail as it was his first offence and social workers suggested he could be helped to reduce the risk of reoffending.

Leask was placed on a 12 month supervision order with 66 hours voluntary work to be carried out over the next three months, and must pay a 240 fine for failing to register as a sex offender last month.

The sheriff said he did not want to place him under a curfew as this might encourage him to indulge in pornography.

Description

A man who followed a 15-year-old girl into a toilet before sexually assaulting her was jailed for a year when he appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court this week.

James Taylor, 39, of Sandveien, Lerwick, had previously admitted to repeatedly grabbing the girls breast and kissing her on the mouth at a party in a bedsit in the towns Union Street on 1st November last year.

During the party, Taylor had been sitting next to the girl and as the night wore on, he moved closer to her and kept placing his hand on her thigh. When she went to the toilet, he followed her in and locked the door behind them before molesting her.

When he was later detained by police, Taylor admitted touching the girl and asking her to come home with him. He said she had told him she was 17 but he later admitted that another adult present at the party had told him she was only 15.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said Taylor, who had been on remand since 25th March pending sentence, had had a difficult upbringing and was yet to come to terms with events from the past where he was a victim but that spending his first time behind bars in the last few weeks had been a serious wake-up for him.

Sheriff Graeme Napier told Taylor that he had been guilty of a very serious offence regardless of the girls age and that he had insisted on making advances towards the girl when she was clearly not interested in you. He added that there was no sense you are aware of the impact your behaviour has had.

He reduced the prison sentence from 18 months because of the guilty plea and Taylor will also be placed on the sex offenders register and added to a list of people who are deemed unsuitable for working with children.

Description

A 25-year-old man has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for a string of disturbing sexual assaults, which included touching womens buttocks in public.

Desislav Branimov Ivanov, whose address was given as Grampian Prison, appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday. At an earlier hearing his address was given simply as Shetlands North Mainland.

Ivanov had previously pleaded guilty to eight charges of intentionally or recklessly sexually touching a number of women and a child between May and August this year. Sentencing was deferred at the time for background reports.

This week the court heard a narration of the charges from procurator fiscal Duncan MacKenzie, who said that Ivanov had engaged in a course of conduct redolent of a most unusual form of sexual fetishism.

Mr MacKenzie said that Ivanov appeared to achieve sexual gratification from surreptitiously touching unsuspecting females on the buttocks and from visually recording the contact on mobile phones.

Police examining material on two mobile phones and a laptop belonging to Ivanov found over 7,000 videos of concern over a period of three years, the fiscal said, adding that only a handful were taken in Shetland. The majority were taken abroad and fell outside of the jurisdiction of the court, Mr MacKenzie said.

Police first became involved after a woman was sexually assaulted on two separate occasions at the Brae Co-op supermarket. On 7th August Ivanov rubbed his hand across her buttocks, the charge states.

There was a distinct sense of disbelief, Mr MacKenzie said, and when the woman later reported the incident to her husband she was visually distressed.

At the same supermarket later that month Ivanov dropped his hat next to the same womans feet. As he crouched to retrieve his hat he then pressed his face against her buttocks while filming himself.

A member of staff and another shopper were alerted by her screams, Mr MacKenzie said, and police were informed. Officers seized CCTV footage of both incidents.

The fiscal added that there was no suggestion that the accused was following the complainer and that her twice ending up in the supermarket at the same time as him seems to have just been a coincidence.

After being identified in CCTV footage Ivanov was detained and interviewed by police, though he answered no comment to most questions. Police seized two mobile phones and a laptop and an initial search turned up 209 videos of concern.

Three of those videos were identified as having taken place in Shetland leading to a further three charges being brought against Ivanov, who was by then taken into custody where he remained after being refused bail.

This gave police more time to begin an onerous investigation which would eventually turn up over 7,000 videos of concern, Mr MacKenzie said.

Disturbing

Eight charges were eventually brought against Ivanov, including one involving touching a child aged between 13 and 16 on the buttocks. In another incident Ivanov was said to have placed his hand on the buttocks of a woman on a bus.

Mr MacKenzie said that the charges amounted to a disturbing course of conduct which was achieved with no concern for the distress that its caused the complainers.

In mitigation defence agent Tommy Allan said that Ivanovs behaviour was clearly very bizarre.

I dont have an explanation for it, he added.

In some of the cases its extremely fleeting, Mr Allan said, adding that the incidents did not progress towards groping or fondling and that some of the victims arent even aware of it. Nonetheless, his client had to accept that it caused distress to the complainers who were conscious of what had happened.

Ivanov appears to have some kind of compulsion, the defence agent added, noting that he had previously received psychological attention for an amphetamine addiction.

By way of punishment his client, whose parents live in Bulgaria, actually favoured the option of deportation Mr Allan said, also noting that Ivanov had already spent the equivalent of a six-month jail term in custody.

Sheriff Philip Mann said that if taken in isolation Ivanovs offences probably did not merit a custodial sentence for a first-time offender, but the total number of offences led him to favour a custodial sentence.

He said: When one considers that there are eight charges in total it paints a very disturbing picture of a course of offending which it is clear causes great distress and anxiety to those who are aware that they have been targeted in this way.

He sentenced Ivanov to two months in custody for each of the seven charges involving adult females and a further six months for the offence involving a child, running to a total of 20 months.

The time in prison will be backdated to when Ivanov first entered custody in August. The sheriff also granted a Crown motion for forfeiture of the two mobile phones and the laptop seized as part of the police investigation.

As for Ivanovs desire to be deported, that was a matter for the Home Office, Sheriff Mann said.

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A MAN who downloaded hundreds of indecent images of children from the internet has walked free from court.

Paul Brentnall, from Mossbank, was caught after his estranged wife found the images on his computer after he moved out of their house in Wiltshire.

And when the 46-year-old was arrested at his new home in Shetland officers found he had been at it again.

Lynne Henderson, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court this week that in November or December 2006 the defendant left his wife when they lived in Moormead Road, Wroughton.

She said he left a personal computer and a laptop and his wife asked a family friend to look at them because of what she found.

The family friend stopped quickly after finding indecent pictures on the machines and they were handed over to the police. Officers found 372 of the images on the computers, including 24 in the worst two categories.

Miss Henderson said Wiltshire officers flew to Shetland in November last year and with the permission of the islands sheriff arrested Brentnall.

When they questioned him he assured them there would be no more similar pictures on his new computer.

But when it was searched it was found to contain 32 more indecent images of children including two in the worst two categories. He told police he could not fathom how they got there and said he had erasing software on the new computer.

Brentnall pleaded guilty to one count of possessing and three of making indecent images of children. The court heard that though he admitted a further count of possession and making of similar images they took place in Scotland, and could only be prosecuted there.

Michael Cullum, defending, said his client had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. Much of the material had been sent to him by people he was communicating with over the internet, the court was told.

Mr Cullum said his client suffered from sleep apnoea and had to sleep with a mask because of the condition. He said his client was keen to accept help for what he had done and was being supported by his new partner.

Judge William Hart imposed a community order and told him to be under supervision for 18 months, do 120 hours of unpaid work and pay 250 costs. He will have to register as a sex offender for five years.

Description

A Shetland teenager has been found guilty of a catalogue of sexual abuse against children as young as seven.

The guilty verdict against 17-year-old Jamie Leask followed a week-long trial at the High Court in Aberdeen.

Leask, who cried as the verdict was read out, was remanded in custody and placed on the sex offenders' register.

The teenager, who committed the offences in Lerwick over an 18-month period, will be sentenced in Edinburgh next month.

His victims were forced to give evidence against him, some via video link, after he denied the charges.

The court heard how he had sex with two different nine-year-old boys on separate occasions and forced them to perform sex acts on him.

He also forced two young boys, aged seven and nine, to have sex and perform lewd acts on each other.

The abuse took place at Seafield Park in Lerwick between 5 July and 23 August last year - while he was bailed for earlier alleged sex attacks on young girls.

However, the charges of rape against the two girls, aged 13 and 14, near a bomb shelter at "The Knab", a coastal walk area in Lerwick, were dropped.

Leask was instead found guilty of having underage sex with the schoolgirls.

The jury heard how the teenager had sex with the 13-year-old girl on Valentine's Day then taunted her that she was carrying his baby.

Baby taunts

He later ordered the other girl, aged 14 - his friend's girlfriend - to strip before having sex with her in September that year, while his friend watched.

The court heard how Leask, a former supermarket check-out operator, committed the first two attacks while he was still at school.

Leask, who has been held in custody since November, had sentence deferred to Edinburgh High Court for background reports until 23 May.

Lord Turnbull told the jury: "The nature of this case, involving evidence from children, has made it a demanding and unpleasant one."

Description

A young Shetland man who downloaded child pornography has been banned from using the internet.

Dean Hughson, 20, was involved in either taking or making 237 indecent photographs and 27 moving pictures.

He also admitted possessing 72 indecent images of children, and nine indecent moving pictures with a view to them being distributed or shown to others.

He was placed on probation for three years at Inverness Sheriff Court, and cannot go online during that time.

The offences happened between March 2003 and May 2005.

Fiscal Stella Swan said the offences came to light following a joint operation by European law enforcement agencies.

Police raided Hughson's home in Sandwick and confiscated computer equipment from his bedroom.

Ms Swan said: "The images were a mixture of pre-pubescent and post-pubescent children. The majority were involved in grossly indecent sexual acts."

Defence lawyer Tommy Allan told the court that computers were "another pitfall" for youngsters in modern society, along with drugs, cars and unwanted pregnancies.

Mr Allan s 'Disgusting trade' aid: "He is not in denial. He is not trying to make excuses. He has been very immature and hopes to make a contribution to society."

'Disgusting trade'

Sheriff Derek Pyle told Hughson: "You have to understand that the court takes a very serious view of these matters.

"When one sees images of this kind in the cold light of day they are horrible.

"They involve the persecution of young kids and it really is a disgusting trade in which you are part of by getting involved in it on your computer.

"But taking into account of your individual circumstances I will make a probation order for three years."

The order included several conditions, including a community service order of 200 hours.

He was ordered to refrain from using the internet during the period of his probation.

Hughson was ordered to take part in a sex offenders' programme and not to have contact with children aged under 16 without prior approval from his supervising officer.

He was also placed on the sex offenders' register for three years.

Description

A sports centre manager on Shetland has been jailed for five years after admitting sexually abusing four young boys over a period of 17 years.

Stephen Duncan, 45, of Gott, gave his victims, aged between seven and 13, gifts including computer games.

Duncan made sex videos of the boys while working as a lifeguard.

The High Court in Glasgow heard the offences took place between 1978 and 1995 at the swimming pool in Lerwick, at Duncan's home and in a caravan.

Lewd practices

Duncan's crimes only came to light when one of his victims mentioned it during counselling after a road accident.

At an earlier hearing he pled guilty to charges of lewd practices and indecent assault involving four boys.

He was placed on the sex offenders' register.

The court heard that Duncan helped draw up child protection rules in the Clickimin Leisure Complex where he was the 40,000 a year manager.

Judge Lord Abernethy told Duncan his crimes were a gross breach of the trust placed on him by his employers and the parents of his victims.

He added: "You were employed to keep them safe, but instead you took advantage of your position to abuse them.

"The effects on your victims are simply incalculable."

Lord Abernethy took account of the fact that Duncan had contributed positively in various ways to the community and also the fact that the consequences for him might be greater than in a larger anonymous community.

Matthew Jackson, defending, said Duncan appreciated the anguish he had caused the victims and revealed that he now faced bankruptcy after losing his job.

He added: "He is a classic example of a man who has lost it all as a result of his activities and there are grave doubts whether he will ever be able to return home.

"His father is very ill and when he saw him last he knew it would be the last time they would see each other."

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A PERVERT pensioner who made a young girl dress up as a nun and sexually abused her was jailed for seven years yesterday.

Lief Olaf Henriccssen, 70, filmed the abuse and told the schoolgirl he would shoot her family.

Lord Marnoch who was shown some of the explicit images said: I have seldom seen such a shocking case.

He imposed an extended sentence of 10 years seven years in custody and then three years on licence under supervision.

The girls mum, comforting her daughter, said afterwards: Its every mothers nightmare but its a victory for the victims and he needs to be off the streets.

First offender Henriccssen abused the schoolgirl when she was aged between just 11 and 13.

The retired storekeeper had earlier admitted having unlawful sexual intercourse with the girl, lewd and libidinous behaviour and taking indecent photos in the late 1990s and was sentenced at the High Court in Aberdeen yesterday.

Drew McKenzie, prosecuting, had told the court that the abuse happened on Shetland when the girl visited Henriccssens house.

He said: The child explains that as the abuse continued she felt intimidated by the accused, who apparently informed her that he would shoot her family if she did not stay with him in the house.

It was that which caused the young girl not to tell her mother what was happening to her.

The court heard he pretended the girl had to use his computer to communicate with an email penfriend he claimed to have set up for her.

The pervert took indecent photographs of the girl and asked her to dress up, including in a nuns costume.

Henriccssens crimes were only exposed when the girls mother was having a general conversation with her about sex education and she indicated she had been touched by the pensioner.

Police took video tapes from his home and found footage of Henriccssen performing sex acts with the girl.

Some indecent images had also been transferred onto computer.

The defence team said the guilty plea saved the girl the ordeal of giving evidence in a trial and seeing the images.

But Lord Marnoch said: Over a period of some 18 months you quite simply debauched a child.

You used lewd and indecent behaviour towards her and regularly had unlawful sexual intercourse with her.

As if that was not enough you also took a large number of disgustingly pornographic photographs of her.

Henriccssen, who had moved from Shetland to Aberdeen in the wake of the case, was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register.

Outside the court, the girls mum said: No sentence is long enough but it seems fairly fair.

We are just glad that this man is no longer free to harm any more children.

As for her abused daughter, the mother said: She does not want to talk about it but I think she is beginning to come out the other side.

When it came out it was a big burden off her shoulders.

She has been progressing and hopefully she will continue to progress.