A heart transplant patient was jailed today after a judge rejected a plea to let him remain at liberty when he admitted abusing three girls.
Lord Young told Robert Foulkes at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You have pled guilty to three charges involving extremely serious sexual offending against young children.”
The judge adjourned sentence on Foulkes, 65, until next month for the preparation of a background report and said: “You are going to be remanded in custody until sentence.”
Lord Young said: “I am not going to continue bail. It seems to me the prison authorities will be well able to provide the medical assistance needed by Mr Foulkes.”
Defence counsel Neil Shand said he recognised that a custodial sentence was inevitable for Foulkes but asked the court to continue his bail at this stage.
He said that the background to the motion to keep him on bail was Foulkes’ medical situation where he took 13 different medications and has forthcoming appointments following his transplant surgery.
He said: “The anti-rejection drugs are such that if he did not take them within about two days the organ would be rejected and he would die.”
Man filmed sex act with child
Mr Shand said Foulkes’ medication regime was “particularly complex” and he also has exercise requirements to assist with the health of the heart.
He argued that prison authorities might benefit from having advance notice of Foulkes’ case before he goes to jail.
Foulkes, of Kingswood Road, Aberdeen, admitted two charges of rape and a further offence of indecent conduct towards a child, when he appeared in court today.
He began abusing his first victim in Aberdeenshire when she was aged eight in 2006 and showed her pornography, exposed himself, molested her and filmed a sex act with the girl.
Foulkes, a retired health and safety officer, targeted two other girls for abuse in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire beginning in 2013 when they were aged eight and subjected them to rape.
Advocate depute Brian Gill KC said that Foukes told one of the victims that it was “their little secret”
Foulkes was placed on the sex offenders’ register and is due to be sentenced at the High Court in Dundee on October 22.
