A Moray businessman who used his position to groom a child has been jailed for his crimes.
Former fishmonger William Mackie molested the 13-year-old girl at the now-closed Lossie Fish Shop on Culbard Street, Elgin.
He also sexually assaulted a vulnerable young woman.
The attacks took place on dates in 2009/10 and 2016.
Mackie, 74, appeared for sentencing at Inverness Sheriff Court having been previously found guilty of charges of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour and sexual assault.
During the trial, Mackie’s first victim told a jury that when she was 13 she would visit Mackie’s shop with friends.
She said the older man would pass her folded bank notes, despite her not having asked him for money.
But when she visited the shop one day hoping for some cash to buy a meal this changed.
“He told me if I wanted money I had to let him kiss my p****,” she said.
The witness explained that Mackie then latched the shop door before laying a towel on the floor in the back of the shop.
“He unbuttoned my jeans, pulled them down to my knees and told me to sit on the towel,” she said, before detailing how Mackie performed a sex act on her.
The witness said the incident had lasted “a few minutes” but “felt a lot longer”.
“Afterwards, I just got dressed and he gave me money and I left,” she told the court.
Child told not to tell anyone about abuse
Asked what Mackie had said to her afterwards she replied: “That I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.”
The witness said she had not told anyone about Mackie’s behaviour at the time because: “I felt like they wouldn’t believe me” and “I didn’t want them to know what happened”.
The woman eventually reported Mackie to police in 2022, after supporting a family member through an experience that “triggered it all up”.
The second victim, who was described in court as “vulnerable”, said she had gone to Mackie’s fish shop believing there was a cleaning job for her.
But when she arrived there was already someone cleaning and she was taken into the office by Mackie and told to “stay quiet”.
The then-22-year-old woman described how Mackie, who was 66 at the time, targeted her in between serving customers telling her: “Let’s take a look at you” before pulling at her jumper and looking at her breasts.
“I pulled away and said no,” she said.
The woman described how Mackie unbuttoned her jeans and put his hand inside her underwear before carrying out an act that was “sore and uncomfortable”.
After this Mackie took her to the back of the shop where he took down her trousers before performing a sex act on her, during which she felt “scared”.
The incident left the woman feeling “horrible”.
Afterwards, Mackie placed £60 in her hand, which she used to retrieve her mobile phone from a pawn shop.
After discussing what had happened with a student advisor at the college where she was studying, the woman contact police a few days later.
During the trial Mackie denied ever having been alone with the first victim, but admitted to kissing the second woman and touching her breasts.
He said: “I was flattered, I thought she was coming on to me”.
Speaking from the witness box he said he felt “huge regret” afterwards.
Guilty Elgin fishmonger denied sex assault
“I know it shouldn’t have happened, I felt guilty, but it had been done and I had no excuse,” he said.
The pensioner denied putting his hand in her underwear and touching her intimately or performing a sex act on her.
But a jury took less than two hours to find Mackie guilty of both charges.
At the sentencing hearing solicitor Stephen Carty, for Mackie, told Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald: “Mr Mackie is aware of the gravity of the matter”.
Sheriff MacDonald told Mackie: “ You were convicted of two serious offences. You sexually assaulted two women.
“There was an element of grooming here, particularly in relation to the younger of the two victims.
“You used your position as a businessman in the local community to gain access to these victims.”
She jailed Mackie, of Cockburn Place, Elgin, for 20 months and placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
She also granted a non-harassment order preventing him from approaching or contacting his victims for the same period of time.
‘Justice has finally been served’
Speaking after the sentencing, the older of Mackie’s two victims told the Press and Journal: “Twenty months, that’s nothing compared to what I had to deal with and what it did to me.
“My mental health took a massive dip. I had to quit college.
“It caused problems for my future relationships.
“I was angered by the fact that he had the audacity to say I was trying to come on to him, I would never come on to someone old enough to be my grandfather.
“If I could have chosen the sentence I would have put him away for a very long time and thrown away the key.
“The way I see it is, it did take years, but it is over and done with, I did what I needed to do and justice has finally been served – he can rot in there.”
