James Jarvie 63

Description

An undertaker who sexually assaulted an 18-year-old colleague while she weighed a corpse in a mortuary has been jailed for two years.

James Jarvie, 63, laughed after groping the teenager's bottom at a branch of Fosters Funeral Directors in Greater Glasgow, a trial heard.

He also tormented a 25-year-old female coworker, forcing her to perform sex acts on him.

Jurors at Glasgow Sheriff Court learned Jarvie sneaked up on the teen in November 2023.

Fiscal Danielle McGuinness said: “The woman was standing at the mortuary register.

“Jarvie approached her from behind and made a beating motion on her bum with both hands.

“She was shocked and asked what he was doing.

“He giggled and turned back around.

“She’d have been 18.”

The young woman testified that former bank manager Jarvie watched her, touched her knees, stroked her face in a private ambulance, and made sexual comments.

Jarvie, from Rutherglen near Glasgow, targeted his second victim in April 2023 while on-call.

He tickled her leg, brushed against her, touched her waist, and slapped her bottom.

The victim recalled: “I think James knew I did not like it.

“But because I didn’t say anything, he knew he could get away with it.”

Jarvie later grabbed her wrist and forced her to touch him intimately, with Ms McGuinness adding: “She tried to pull back but he had too strong of a grip.”

He commented on her body, expressed desire to kiss her, and in another incident, cornered her, exposed and molested her, causing her to “just freeze,” before forcing a sex act.

In a further assault, he groped her and performed a solo act.

Ms McGuinness said the victim was “petrified” to speak out, fearing disbelief as a new employee: “He was older.

“He had been a respected bank manager.

“She did not want people to say she was making it up.

“She did not think people would believe her.”

Jarvie's behavior ended when he tried to kiss her and she told him to stop.

He was convicted of two sexual assault charges and two counts of directing sexual verbal communication between April and November 2023.

Sheriff Tony Kelly imposed indefinite non-harassment orders barring contact with the victims and placed Jarvie on the sex offenders register for ten years.