Alistair Bennie 61

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A Strathaven masseur is facing jail after he was convicted of indecently assaulting 10 female patients.

Alistair Bennie, 61, denied molesting the women while treating them, but a jury returned guilty verdicts after a week-long trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court.

One victim said she felt “very violated” after Bennie touched her inappropriately and others told the court they were “very embarrassed” and “mortified”.

One woman said she “froze”.

Bennie denied any wrongdoing and his lawyer questioned why it had taken several years for most of the women to report him.

But prosecutor Neil Thomson said the case against him was “compelling”.

Most of the women didn’t know each other but there were “striking similarities” in what they said Bennie had done to them.

Mr Thomson told the jury: “This was a persistent course of conduct.”

The assaults happened between September 2017 and June 2022.

Mostly the women were targeted in their own home, often when someone else was also in the house.

One victim told the court she didn’t report Bennie immediately because she doesn’t like confrontation and felt sorry for him.

She said: “When we were chatting he told me about his personal life and problems he was having. I believe mentally he was not well and I felt sorry for him.”

After the guilty verdicts Bennie was put on the sex offenders’ register.

Sheriff Linda Nicolson deferred sentence until May for background reports, an electronic tagging assessment and a risk assessment.

Bennie, of Hamilton Road, Strathaven, remains on bail.

One of the bail conditions prevents him working as a masseur.

The sheriff told him: “The charges you have been convicted of are very serious and at this stage custody is uppermost in my mind.”