An Inverness man who followed two women and lifted the skirt of one of them has been given unpaid work and put on three years supervision.
Alan Mitchell, 49, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday for sentence after previously admitting behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards the two women, aged in their 30s and 5os respectively.
Sheriff Gary Aitken, who had deferred sentence for a background report, ordered Mitchell to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work as an alternative to prison. He also placed him on the sex offenders register and under social work supervision for three years and instructed him to take part in a sex offenders rehabilitation programme.
The sheriff told Mitchell: “These are very serious charges and either one of them alone could have justified a prison sentence. This has been at the forefront of my mind.”
Sheriff Aitken added, however: “There seems to be some issues in your life which may have led to these offences.
“This is the time to deal with them to make sure this does not happen again.”
The court heard yesterday that Mitchell’s brother was killed in an accident on the A9 four years ago, with his mother dying just seven weeks later.
The marriage of the former delivery driver, of Diriebught Court, then broke up and his solicitor Rory Gowans said his client believed that “he had something of a mental breakdown”.
The lawyer added: “He is at a loss to explain his behaviour. But he has had a few body blows in the past few years and has not really dealt with them well. He has been in the throes of despair since then and offers his unreserved apologies to the women.”
The older woman was followed by Mitchell down a dark street from Morrison’s supermarket towards the railway station on the night of January 18 this year.
He caught up with her, touched her coat and then lifted her skirt.
Then, the court was told, he mumbled: “That was nice.”
The incident happened just two months after Mitchell followed a woman into the Rose Street car park, and watched her walk towards her car, before knocking on the window, asking to talk to her,
The motorist was so disturbed, she drove away and reported it to police.
Both incidents were filmed on CCTV.
Fiscal depute Niall Macdonald told the court that one woman still feels very wary in car parks and gets upset when she hears sounds that are similar to the knocking on her car window.
Mr Macdonald added that the second victim was also traumatised by the incident.
He said: “She was totally shocked and scared by what happened. She wouldn’t go out in the dark and has only started walking on her own after the clocks changed.”
