Locations
Lanark, Lanarkshire, ML11
Description
The family of a youngster who was sexually abused at a holiday park have told of their horror after learning her attacker was on bail for an identical crime at the time.
Police were already hunting for Bryan Shields when he struck again.
Shields, of Lanark, appeared at Airdrie Sheriff Court in April where he admitted molesting the five-year-old on four occasions over a three-day period in September last year.
The abuse happened in a caravan at Southerness Holiday Park, near Dumfries, where the girl was staying with her gran.
Last week Shields, 45, was jailed for four-and-a-half years. The victims family members who watched him being sentenced said they were outraged he had been free to target the girl while due to stand trial for abusing the other youngster.
In court, Shields also admitted sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl on three occasions at a house in Cumbernauld in June 2019. He was on bail for an unrelated matter when he carried out the first sex assault.
Despite that, he was again freed pending trial, but failed to turn up at court three times in July 2021, February 2022 and August last year. A warrant for his arrest was outstanding when he sexually assaulted the second victim.
After Shields was jailed, a relative of the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said: Its outrageous. We werent aware of the 2019 sexual assault. If he had been jailed earlier for that, the second assault might never have happened.
I was so angry when I heard this in court. I had to hold myself back because I wanted to punch Shields. That poor wee girl has to live with what he did to her for the rest of her life.
The court heard Shields had befriended the girls gran in Lanark but turned up out of the blue at the holiday park. He told them he was planning to buy a caravan himself but in the meantime was camping on the beach.
The relative said: The girls gran was hoodwinked by him. She is the sort of person who would give you her last penny and she let him stay in the caravan because she felt sorry for him lying in a tent on the beach. It was an act of kindness.
The relative said: It was only later that the girl told her mother what Shields had done to her and the police were contacted.
Sheriff Paul Haran told Shields he would have been jailed for six years but for his guilty pleas. The sentence was backdated to October 3 last year.