An alleged victim of an Aberdeen photographer accused of sexual offences involving 13 females broke down as she described a harrowing sexual incident during a photoshoot with him.
Simon ‘Sid’ Scott, 44, is facing more than a dozen charges of sexual assaults and indecent behaviour against young women and an underage girl – many of whom modelled for him in his role as a professional photographer.
Scott, of Sunnyside Road, Aberdeen, denies all the charges.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard from one 28-year-old woman who accused Scott of pressuring her to wear a “sexy Santa” outfit for a Christmas Eve photoshoot before allegedly sexually assaulting her in his studio.
The woman, who was 19 at the time, alleges Scott took her up to his Aberdeen city centre studio where he shot “many, many” photos before kneeling on top of her and groping her private parts.
Woman claims she ‘froze’
Describing Scott as a “creep” and a “weird little man”, the woman said she had initially been impressed by Scott’s photography and agreed to an outdoor photoshoot.
However, when she arrived she claims Scott told her the light wasn’t good and he suggested they go to his studio in nearby Belmont Street.
She told jurors how after taking a large number of photographs in an outfit she’d agreed to wear, Scott then requested she put on a sexy Santa outfit.
The woman wept as she alleged Scott got her to lie on the ground before kneeling over her and sexually assaulting her by forcing his fingers inside her underwear.
“I remember freezing,” she said. “Stupidly I thought he’d made a mistake and I moved back from him. I don’t know why I thought it was an accident at that point.
“But even though I had moved back he did it again and I froze again- I just remember thinking ‘oh no’.”
She claimed as Scott made a “guttural grunting” sound she jumped up off the ground and “just wanted to get out of there”.
“He didn’t even look embarrassed and I don’t remember him saying sorry,” she said.
The woman added that when she confronted Scott he “rolled his eyes” at her.
‘My story is my story and that’s what happened’
Asked by fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar why in 2020 she went to the police to report Scott, she said: “There had been so many people that had been affected by this person.
“I felt I was coming forward for myself and I would be coming forward for them too.
“I did not know whether anyone had been raped or whether any minors had been affected.
“I knew something needed to be done – it couldn’t continue.”
However, during a heated cross-examination with Scott defence advocate David Taylor he put it to the woman that the sexual assault never took place.
She angrily responded by stating she was “violated” by Mr Taylor’s client, adding: “Sid Scott, Simon Scott – whatever he’s calling himself – sexually assaulted me on December 24 2014.
“My story is my story and that’s what happened to me.”
Witness claims accused stalked her
A second woman gave evidence to the jury accusing Scott of chatting to her on Myspace then MSN Messenger when she was 13 and asking about her sexual experience.
“He would ask if I had a boyfriend and what I had done with boys, then it quickly changed whether I was a virgin,” the woman said.
She claimed Scott would follow her and alleged he had followed her to H&M clothes shop in Aberdeen and texted her, saying he was watching her and described what she was wearing.
“I was terrified,” she said. “I dropped what I was holding and ran out of the shop.”
The woman, now 29, told the court she subsequently had to change her email and phone number in order to be rid of Scott.
During cross-examination, she told Mr Taylor his client had “made her feel uncomfortable as if she was being watched”.
The trial, before Sheriff Morag McLaughlin, continues.
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