A photographer on trial over alleged sexual offences involving 13 females has been accused of getting a 17-year-old girl drunk and naked in a hotel room before sexually assaulting her.
Simon ‘Sid’ Scott is facing more than a dozen charges of sexual assaults and indecent behaviour against young women and an underage girl – with many of the women offered free photoshoots with the 44-year-old.
Scott, of Sunnyside Road, Aberdeen, denies all the charges against him.
Giving evidence on the third day of the trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, the woman – who was a secondary school pupil at the time – claimed the photographer arranged a “test shoot” at Glasgow’s Citizen M Hotel where he plied her with vodka and got her to take her clothes off.
She alleges that Scott then lathered her in baby oil, groped her breasts and sexually assaulted her.
The woman, now 24, said she cried following the assault and “just wanted to get out of there”.
The woman – who now works in the fashion industry – claimed Scott told her it was “more efficient” if he applied the baby oil himself before covering her in glitter.
He then allegedly assaulted her by touching her breasts, bottom and private parts.
Woman claims accused too ‘greatest liberties’ when applying oil
She told fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar via videolink that upon entering the hotel room Scott offered her a drink and she had “quite a few” and was “quite tipsy, close to drunk”.
As the photoshoot progressed she alleges Scott then told her to remove her underwear so she was completely naked.
She claims Scott – who she said was not drinking – then told the teenager he would apply baby oil to her body to cover her in glitter, which was a popular photography trend in 2017.
“He told me it would be more efficient if he did it. I didn’t want to hang around so I just let him do it,” she said.
“He put baby oil over my entire body – placed where I didn’t need to have it on.
“This is where he took the greatest liberties in touching me.”
The woman said that she was then sexually assaulted by Scott, at which point she started to cry.
When the photoshoot ended and they left the hotel room, the woman further alleges that Scott blocked the door and asked her for a kiss.
“That’s one of the worst bits for me. I was so close to getting out of there – he did it to test how far he could get with me,” she said.
During cross-examination, Scott’s defence advocate David Taylor put it to the woman that during the photoshoot his client was “anxious to get on with the shoot” and so had applied the baby oil.
“I think he was particularly keen to prolong it,” she replied.
Mr Taylor asked that “if there was any contact” with the woman’s genital area it was “entirely fleeting and unintentional?”
She responded by stating that it “wasn’t fleeting and it was definitely intentional”.
He went on to to ask the woman if the request for a kiss was just a “light-hearted gesture?”
“I think it’s inappropriate as I was 17,” she said.
A second witness also gave evidence to the court and described a similar situation involving baby oil and glitter during a photoshoot with Scott in February 2017.
The woman, who was a part-time model and 18 at the time, claimed Scott insisted on applying more baby oil and glitter, despite her applying it herself.
She alleges he then groped her breasts, which left her feeling “sexually violated”.
“I assumed he was a professional,” she said. “At that point, I knew there had been a line crossed. I felt quite ill about the whole thing.”
While being cross-examined, Mr Taylor enquired why the woman, now 25, didn’t just say “I don’t want to do that?”
“I didn’t feel confident enough at the time to say that,” she said.
The trial, before Sheriff Morag McLaughlin, continues.
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