July 2021

Scots pensioner raped schoolgirl in woods during campaign of sexual abuse against children

A pensioner was jailed after raping a girl on a woodland walk following an 18-year campaign of sex offending against children.

Edward Swan, 75, attacked the girl at Buckland Woods, at Hawick, in the Scottish Borders, and seized her and removed her lower clothing before pushing her to the ground and raping her.

The victim later told a police officer and social worker during an interview: “He forced me down so that he could do it to us.”

She was one of four girls subjected to abuse by Swan between 2000 and 2018.

Swan, of Fairhurst Drive, Hawick, had denied a string of offences during a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh but was today convicted of five sex crimes – two rapes, two indecency offences and a sexual assault.

His first victim was aged between six and eight when he targeted her for abuse during stays that she made at an address in his home town between 2000 and 2003.

A second girl was molested and raped by him at a house and in the woods in Hawick when she aged seven or eight. The third girl was a primary school pupil when she was subjected to abuse by Swan between 2011 and 2013 in a Borders town.

The fourth girl, who was raped at Buckland Woods, was aged 10 or 11 at the time of the offence which occurred between 2015 and 2018.

His first victim gave evidence, which was pre recorded and shown to the jury at his trial. She spoke of three incidents when Swan abused her as a child during stays at a house in Hawick where he was supposed to be sleeping on a couch.

She said he would come into a bedroom where she was sleeping and touch her and perform a sex act. She said: “I don’t know what time it was. It was dark.”

The woman, now aged 27, said that the first time it occured she “just froze”. She told the court in her filmed evidence that she did not understand what was happening but added: “I just knew it was not right.”

On a second occasion Swan had whispered in her ear as he abused her and told her “that I needed to know what it felt like.”

She said that when a third incident took place she felt she could not stop it from happening and screamed and a woman came to her aid.

The woman said she later told her partner that she had been abused and came forward to speak to police after a newspaper article.

Swan, who has no criminal record, was on bail following a court appearance in 2019.

But after the jury returned its verdicts the trial judge, Lord Burns, remanded him in custody and placed him on the sex offenders’ register.

The judge adjourned sentence on Swan until September for the preparation of a background report on him 

Update: Now living in Galashiels

February 2020

Paedo radio DJ who had stash of 600 child abuse images spared jail

A local radio DJ who was found with more than 600 indecent images of children on his computer has been spared jail.

Paul Brownlee – who has worked for Wave 102 in Dundee, Radio Forth in Edinburgh and Borders Radio– was sentenced to two years supervision in the community and 200 hours of unpaid work.

The DJ is a familiar face around the country due to his radio work – and has fronted events with stars such as the Cheeky Girls.

At a previous hearing Dundee Sheriff Court heard that Brownlee, 47, was a manager at Specsavers in St Andrews at the time of his arrest last April.

Police, acting on a tip-off that indecent images of children might be found on devices at his home, raided last January.

Brownlee, who now lives with his mother in the Borders, was in the flat with his partner and her child.

Following a search by officers, his laptop was seized and passed on to the force’s cybercrime unit.

It contained contain 663 inaccessible indecent images of children including 16 category A, 30 category B and 617 category C images.

Brownlee later admitted making the indecent photographs between January 2018 and January 2019

Sheriff Lorna Drummond told him that because he was a first offender and the number of images was in the 100s rather than the 1000s that she would not jail him.

She said the community payback order was a direct alternative to custody and as well as his sentence she placed him on the sexual offenders’ register for two years.

April 2021

Hawick: Sex offender pleads guilty to breaching court order

A Borders sex offender admitted breaching a court order by failing to notify police within three days of a change in his circumstances.

Alan Palmer, 58, from Hawick, had sentence deferred until April 26 for a supplementary background report to be produced.

April 2021

Ten months in jail for Galashiels man who breached supervision order three times

A Galashiels man who breached a court supervision order for the third time has been jailed for 10 months.

Last September he was warned of the consequences of breaching the order again after he admitted contacting two women via Facebook Messenger without informing social workers.

He also engaged in a conversation via Facebook without notifying social services staff of the identity of the person he was talking to, and has since breached the supervision order again

Sheriff Peter Paterson said he accepted the argument that Mulvey had not re-offended since committing the original offence, but he explained that this was now the third time Mulvey had failed to comply with the court order and that was unacceptable.

Mulvey was sentenced to 10 months in prison, reduced from 12 months, and was also made subject to the sex offenders notification requirements for a period of 10 years.

Mulvey was banned from accessing the internet without prior approval for three years after admitting engaging in indecent online communications with someone claiming to be a child.

He had pleaded guilty to that charge in April 2019 and was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court two months later.

Besides not being allowed to go online without prior approval from a supervising social worker, he must disclose details of any devices he can access the internet on and must inform social workers of any friendships, associations or intimate or domestic relationships he forms.

He must also declare contact information for anyone he communicates with, either directly or indirectly.