A former advocate convicted of indecently assaulting two schoolboys more than 20 years ago has been jailed.
Mark Strachan, 64, was found guilty following a trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court of two charges of sexually touching the teenage brothers between 1999 and 2001 at two addresses in the city.
A jury found him guilty by majority verdict on both charges on November 17 last year.
Strachan – who penned a legal textbook on the topic of sexual offending in 2015 – was described as having “abused his position” by gaining access to the boys while operating as the family lawyer.
Today, Sheriff Ian Wallace told Strachan that his actions “risked damaging the trust the wider public have for professionals working in the administration of justice”.
He added: “You obtained access to your victims by deception and carried out these offences while in their home as the family solicitor.
“It’s an abuse of the position of authority you were in and that’s reflected in the impact of your offending upon your victims, who suffered the trauma of sexual offending by a professional they trusted.
“They have subsequently found difficulty trusting figures of authority.”
Advocate had previous convictions
Strachan was jailed for two years and stripped of his advocate role after being found guilty of fraud and attempted fraud totalling almost £50,000.
He was convicted at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in 2014 of submitting numerous false travel claims for expenses to the Scottish Legal Aid Board over several years.
Following the guilty verdict last year, one of Strachan’s victims, now 37, said it had been a “long, hard journey” in the fight for justice for him and his brother.
During the five-day trial, jurors heard how Strachan asked the boy’s parents if he could measure them as part of a “teenage growth study”.
He then took one 13-year-old boy into a bedroom where he measured his arms, legs and private parts with a measuring tape before handling his penis.
Another witness, who was around 14 or 15 at the time, told the fiscal depute Rebecca Thompson that Strachan did the same to him before tapping his penis with a pen.
“He wanted me to take it out and get it to grow – I told him, no.”
The witness, now 38, went on to say that it happened “two or three times more” after the first time.
He added that Strachan paid him “£5 or £10 every time”.
Strachan rebuked by sheriff
As he took the witness stand yesterday, the former advocate repeatedly denied that the incidents ever took place – claiming he was working “absolutely flat out” at the time.
Strachan lost his temper with the fiscal depute after she suggested he could have altered time sheets to cover up his tracks.
Strachan – who was convicted of doctoring documents to falsely claim travel allowances and mileage fees during his 2014 fraud trial – raised his voice and called that line of questioning “a disgrace”, earning a stern rebuke from Sheriff Ian Wallace.
The former advocate’s defence solicitor Kris Gilmartin highlighted a number of letters provided to the court from Strachan’s friends and family outlining his “good character”.
He stated that it was “difficult to reconcile the character that comes through in those letters with the person who would commit these types of offences”.
Mr Gilmartin added that there had been significant press interest in the trial and that Strachan had had to live with the “shame attached to that”.
Sheriff Wallace told the former advocate that he was satisfied that “only a custodial sentence was appropriate” and sentenced Strachan to two years in prison.
He made Strachan, of Leslie, near Insch, subject to the sex offenders register for 10 years.
For all the latest court cases in Aberdeen as well as crime and breaking incidents, join our Facebook group.
