A former paramedic was yesterday found guilty of nine charges of abuse and abduction during a 20-year period.
Bruce Black, who quit Skye to live on Bute after a short spell in Germany, would take his victims from their homes and drive them at high speed to various locations in Scotland and England.
He would sometimes assault them in the vehicle or their home, and also leave them stranded in various locations or refuse to let them leave his car.
At Inverness Sheriff Court, a jury took four and a half hours to consider 12 charges of assault, assault and abduction and abduction, and found him guilty by a majority of nine charges. The offences took place on Skye, along Loch Ness side and in Dumbarton between January 1994 and September 2014.
Two of the original 14 charges were dropped by fiscal depute Robert Weir.
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He was convicted of a total of six assaults and three abductions and not guilty on the remaining three charges.
Sentence was deferred until July 15 for a background report and an assessment for a newly introduced serious domestic abuser programme.
But Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood told Black that he shouldn’t read anything into his reasons for deferral and continued his bail.
The trial heard earlier that Black’s offences included slapping one victim and leaving her at Loch Ness-side. He also pulled another victim’s hair as she tried to leave his vehicle after he threatened to kill her son.
The jury heard he drove a third woman away from her home and again wouldn’t let her leave his vehicle.
Black gave evidence in his defence, and claimed all the woman had lied and the events never happened. He claimed they were all “pure fantasy”.
Defence counsel Kelly Duling reserved her comments until her 56 year old client re-appeared for sentence.
