A man has been detained at a mental health hospital after a horrifying attack on a midwife that was captured on Zoom.
Lucas Pearce, from England, turned up at the woman’s Inverness home out of the blue and then forced his way inside when she opened the door.
After assaulting her in the hallway the 36-year-old dragged his terrified victim upstairs and made the chilling threat: “You deserve to be killed”.
Inverness Sheriff Court was told the horrifying ordeal was captured on a video call – and it was one of the woman’s shocked colleagues who called the police.
Fiscal depute Martina Eastwood said the woman was on the conference call when her doorbell rang and she went downstairs to answer it.
“She could see a man through the glass standing there,” she said.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
“She opened the door but did not recognise him. She said she did not know him and went to shut the door but he forced his way in.
“He said: ‘don’t you know who I am?’ and forced her arms to punch herself on the face.”
Pearce had travelled north from his home in England to carry out the assault, the court was told.
Mrs Eastwood said the colleague on the Zoom call heard thumping and the woman screaming for her to call the police, which she did.
Pearce, meanwhile, was pulling her upstairs, telling her: “You deserve to be killed.”
When he realised the attack was being broadcast on a video call he turned to the camera told the colleague: “Do you know she is a child abuser? She raped me when I was four years old.”
Victim still suffers flashbacks
Police quickly arrived at the property, told Pearce to let the woman go, which he did, and he was handcuffed and arrested.
His terrified victim suffered numerous contusions, pains to her chest and shoulder and was off work for five weeks after the June 14 incident.
Mrs Eastwood said the woman sustained nerve damage to her shoulders and requires ongoing physiotherapy.
“She still suffers from flashbacks and is terrified he will attack her or her family again.” Mrs Eastwood added.
When Pearce appeared in court, he was remanded to Rohallion Secure Care Clinic in Perth on an interim compulsion order for mental health treatment,
He is still there but was taken north to appear before Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald and admitted assault to injury and impairment.
Defence solicitor Willie Young produced psychiatric reports for his client but the sheriff decided she wanted up to date psychiatric reports plus a background report.
Sentence was deferred until January 18 and Pearce was again remanded to the clinic.
