March 2019

Alloa pensioner guilty of rape

AN ALLOA pensioner was warned he faced a lengthy jail sentence for sex offences against children as a judge praised victims for coming forward to bring him to justice.

James Adam had denied a catalogue of offences committed against three girls over 26 years but was found guilty of five offences of indecency, a rape and an indecent assault.

Adam took two girls to watch streetwalkers plying their trade before subjecting one to a rape ordeal at a house in Alloa, in Clackmannanshire, when she was aged 15. He exposed himself to the second 12-year-old girl.

He targeted another victim from the age of four and repeatedly molested her at addresses in Alloa and Sauchie, in Clackmannanshire, and at Holytown, in Lanarkshire, before carrying out a sex attack on her when she was a teenager in a car in Sauchie in 2001.

A judge told Adam at the end of his five-day trial: “You stand convicted now by the jury’s verdict of deplorable sexual offences committed against young girls.”

The 80-year-old called out “never” as he stood in the dock at the High Court in Edinburgh.

But Lord Pentland continued: “It is inevitable, in due course, I will impose a substantial custodial sentence on you given the gravity of these offences.”

The judge said: “I will have more to say about the disturbing circumstances of your offending in due course.”

Lord Pentland added: “In my view each of the victims deserve considerable credit for the courage they have shown in coming forward after all these years to ensure you are brought to justice.”

The judge deferred sentence on Adam for the preparation of a background report on the first offender, who was previously on bail, and remanded him in custody.

Lord Pentland told him: “Your counsel has moved for bail. I have no hesitation in refusing that

motion in view of the gravity of your offending and the wider public interest.”

The judge thanked jurors for their “difficult and distressing public service” during the harrowing case.

Adam, formerly of Bellevue Road, Alloa, began his sex offending in 1975 after grooming a vulnerable girl with car trips and cash.

The victim, now aged 53, said that Adam would take her to an area of Glasgow. She said: “There was lots of women walking up and down. I now know it was a place for prostitutes.”

She said they would sit in the car and Adam asked her whether she wanted to do that when she was older.

The woman said: “He used to take me runs in his car quite a lot. He used to buy me chip shop suppers. He used to give me money.”

She said she was “going on 11, still 10” when she first met him and added it felt great at the time getting that attention from him.

The woman said she came from a “quite poor” background and her mother had a drink problem and she spent periods in residential care as a child.

She said Adam began getting her to carry out sex acts on him. She said: “It all started when I was 10.”

The woman said Adam would laugh at her and touch her and make comments on her body and get her to perform “sexual favours”.

She said that on a few occasions she went to a former home of Adam in Alloa and told the court: “It was there when I was 15, that’s when he had sex with me.”

She told advocate depute Dorothy Bain QC that he worked for the railway and she would visit the signal box where he was employed, but could not remember if sexual contact took place there.

Adam was placed on the sex offenders’ register.

February 2019

Paedophile locked up for touching Clacks girl on a bus

A paedophile pensioner living in Clacks has been locked up for befriending and groping a teenager on a bus.

James Landsborough appeared for sentencing at Stirling Sheriff Court on Wednesday, February 6, having been convicted of the offence at trial the previous month.

January 2019

Pervert sent sexual messages and pictures to children

An Alloa man has admitted trying to send sexual messages and pictures to children.

Alexander Davidson appeared at Falkirk Sheriff Court on Tuesday, January 29, where he pleaded guilty to the offences, which took place last year.

The charges state that, on various occasions between February 1 and March 14, at an address on McKinlay Crescent, Alloa, Davidson intentionally, and for the purposes of sexual gratification, to humiliate, distress or alarm four people, who all posed as young girls, by sending them sexual messages.

November 2018

Alloa teen convicted of sexual assault twice in same month

A WEE COUNTY teen is behind bars this week after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two women, just weeks after he was convicted for similar attacks on two children.

Adam Anderson was found guilty of two charges following a trial at Stirling Sheriff Court on Monday, November 19.

He assaulted a 17-year-old and a 23-year-old in two separate incidents earlier this year.

The first involved the 23-year-old female, and took place on July 8 near to an underpass near Wallace Street in Stirling.

The victim, speaking from behind a screen, said she was walking alone to a friend’s house at around 8pm when she noticed Anderson ahead of her.

She said: “I didn’t notice him at first because I was just walking, and just as he was one meter ahead of me he swerved into my direction and with his left hand smacked me across the bum.”

Anderson, 19, then walked down and through the underpass where the woman had just emerged from.

She added: “I was just shocked at first because it was just so random.”

The court was then shown CCTV footage of the incident, with Anderson seen later emerging from the underpass.

Details of the second incident on August 9 were then heard.

The 17-year-old, also speaking from behind a screen, said she was followed as she made her way home, alone, from Alloa Railway Station in the evening.

She said: “I was followed home for a lengthy amount of time, and just as I got to my front door I felt someone right behind me.

“It was obvious they were following me because they were really close.”

She then described the assault and told the court: “I felt someone grab me from behind. He grabbed my bum with both hands. It wasn’t lingering, but it was definitely a grab.”

She said Anderson then walked away, and she reported the incident to the police when inside her home.

When asked how she felt after the assault, the teenager broke down, but bravely continued with her evidence.

“It was like my stomach was just like a pit,” she said. “It was just disgusting.”

The court was played CCTV footage of a street near the area where the victim was assaulted, which showed her walking quickly while Anderson followed closely behind.

Anderson gave his version of events to the court and claimed he suffers from “split personality disorder”, and that he sometimes hears voices in his head.

When asked about what happened on July 8, he claimed he hit the woman on the buttocks “by accident” while trying to get her attention and ask for a cigarette.

When asked about the second incident involving the 17-year-old girl on August 9, Anderson said he thought he recognised the girl as a friend of his.

He added that he and the alleged friend would always “do something random” to introduce themselves to each other, citing the buttock grab as such an act.

However, Sheriff Simon Collins was unconvinced by Anderson’s bizarre explanations and found him guilty of both charges, while ruling there was a sexual element to the crimes.

He said: “I found both complainers to be entirely credible, and the accused’s explanations entirely uncredible.”

The sheriff was then told about the conviction for sexual assault handed down at Alloa Sheriff Court only two weeks ago.

He also heard that both convictions were remarkably similar in nature.

As a result, Sheriff Collins ruled that Anderson be remanded in custody before re-appearing for sentencing on November 28.