An international businessman appeared at a Highland court yesterday charged with four historic sex offences.
Rupert Valpy, who lives in France, is alleged to have committed the offences at a house on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Lochaber and at Sierra Nevada in Spain.
The 68-year-old, of Saint-André-et-Appelles, Gironde, did not submit pleas and Sheriff Jim Scott continued the case to October 11.
He granted Valpy bail until his next court appearance at Fort William Sheriff Court with a special condition that he must not enter the Ardnamurchan peninsula.
Valpy has a BSc in Law and Economics from the University of Southampton and qualified as a chartered accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, London.
He has worked in property development in Brazil, Holland, Switzerland, France and South Africa, and is the Dordogne West representative for Mérignas-based French real estate agency Maxwell Storrie Baynes.
The charges allege that Valpy engaged in lewd, indecent and libidinous practices with a girl under the age of 12 on the peninsula on various occasions between December 2002 and December 2004.
He is also alleged to have acted in a similar manner towards another girl, who was also under the age of 12, at Sierra Nevada on one occasion in December 2001 or January 2002.
This charge points out that the behaviour was against the law in Spain and would have constituted a listed sexual offence if it had been committed in Scotland.
Further charges allege that Valpy carried out similar behaviour with the same girl in Lochaber on various occasion between February 2002 and the following February and between February 2003 and February 2006.