A man who touched a woman’s breast as they chatted outside an Inverness city centre pub has been found guilty of sexual assault.
Raymond Marshall, 39, had denied the charge, claiming any contact was “accidental” but was found guilty following a trial at Inverness Sheriff Court.
As a result of the conviction he was placed on the sex offenders register.
In evidence led by fiscal depute Victoria Silver, the trial heard from the woman, who explained how she had been smoking with a male friend outside Lauders Bar on Church Street when they were approached by Marshall, who introduced himself as Rambo.
‘He offered to be my boyfriend’
The woman said Marshall questioned whether she and her friend were romantically involved they answered that they were not.
She told the court: “He offered to be my boyfriend and told me I was welcome to go home with him.”
The woman said she felt “cornered” by Marshall, who she believed to be under the influence of drink or “something else”.
The woman said it was soon after this that Marshall told a story involving someone “being choked” and “demonstrated” on her.
“He grabbed my throat,” she said.
The woman explained that she felt that while she “didn’t say anything”, she would have been “visibly uncomfortable” about the contact.
Man tapped her repeatedly on the chest
She added: “Rambo took it as I enjoyed it and did it again to me where he put his hand around my throat.”
Following this, she tried to ignore him and turned her attention to her friend, which resulted in Marshall tapping her repeatedly on the chest above the cleavage to get her attention.
“I tried to back away but the wall was behind me so I wasn’t able to go any further,” the woman explained, before telling the court that the tapping moved “slowly further down towards my cleavage” ending “at the very top of my cleavage”.
The woman said she initially planned to give Marshall a fake telephone number when he asked for hers, but he insisted she call his phone from hers so he would have it.
She said: “He showed it to me that it was ringing – he then placed the ringing phone on top of my breast so that I could feel it ringing, I tried to move away but he was squeezing around the phone.”
The friend who had been present at the time of the incident told the court he had seen Marshall “cupping” the woman’s breast.
‘One accidental brush’
Taking to the witness box in his own defence, Marshall said: “There was no groping, no grabbing, just a cuddle and one accidental brush.”
He said: “I am quite a gentleman, I like to think I am.”
But Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood said: “I have no doubt that you behaved in the way you did – possibly affected by alcohol or some other substance, but we have heard no evidence of that, but you did and you are guilty as libelled.”
He deferred sentencing on Marshall, of Kenneth Street, to next month for the production of a criminal justice social work report and placed him on the sex offenders register with immediate effect.
