A man told a woman his mum had cancer and asked for a hug before pushing her onto a bed and attempting to strip her from the waist down.
The incident was the culmination of a course of unwanted “dirty or flirty” behaviour towards the woman by Robin Parker, which included offering her money to see her private parts and pulling down her trousers to touch her against her will.
The victim was one of two women who gave evidence against Parker in a trial at Inverness Sheriff Court.
The other told how he had targeted her after offering lifts, on one occasion showing her a sexual image and requesting she do the same.
On another, insisting she kiss him on the lips before he would drive on.
Parker, 55, was found guilty of charges of sexual assault, directing sexual verbal communication without consent and breach of the peace.
The charges spanned a nine-year period from 2007 to 2016 and took place at various locations in Perth and Kinross and Moray.
In evidence led by fiscal depute Pauline Gair, the trial heard how one young woman was targeted after she accepted a lift from Parker.
She told the court: “He reversed the car into the parking space. He produced his phone showing a picture of a woman stripped down to her pants sitting with her legs spread open pulling her pants to the side and asked me if I would do that for him.”
Kiss request put woman in panic
On another occasion when travelling with Parker, the witness said he pulled into a layby and asked her to kiss him on the lips, a request that put her “into panic mode”.
The court heard that the woman eventually agreed to this request, despite the fact that her first reaction had been “fight or flight”.
When questioned by defence advocate John Brannigan on why she had not done either if she was distressed, she said: “I had no other option.”
A second woman told the court that Parker had targeted her when she had not expected it, starting with inappropriate comments.
She said: “He started being quite dirty or flirty toward me. He was doing things like looking down my top saying ‘nice boobs you’ve got there’.”
The woman said he asked her to show him her private parts, and offered to give her money if she did by saying “he would slip a hundred pounds in my back pocket and no one would know”.
She told how he put his hand down her top and touched her breast. When she threatened to contact the police he told her: “There is one thing people don’t do to me, that is threaten me with the police.”
Sex assault victim left ‘terrified’
The woman told the court the encounter made her fearful.
“I was terrified, I was scared,” she said.
But Parker’s behaviour continued to escalate.
On one occasion he pulled her trousers down and touched her private parts.
On another, he told her his mother had cancer and asked her for a hug before pushing her onto a bed and trying to remove her lower clothing, stopping only when he was interrupted.
She said the last incident left her “frozen” and “crying”.
Taking to the stand in his own defence Parker denied that any of the incidents had happened, making comments such as “innocent”, “not guilty” and “didn’t happen” when the events the women described were put to him.
He claimed that health problems affecting his mobility meant he would have been unable to act in the way described.
‘I’m not a boob person’
When questioned about touching the woman’s chest he said: “I’m not a boob person.”
Parker’s defence suggested his prominent rings and sharp fingernails, which were kept long to assist with his hobby of Second World War modelling, would have caused the woman injury if he had tried to touch her against her will and there was no evidence of injury.
But a jury took around an hour to reject this version of events, returning majority guilty verdicts on all three charges.
Sheriff Sara Matheson called for pre-sentencing reports and placed Parker, of Bridge Street, New Byth, on the sex offenders register with immediate effect.
The case will call again next month, with Parker remaining on bail until then.
