A man who punched, slapped and kicked an autistic man after contacting him on Grindr has been ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.
Darwyn Perry, 37, was found guilty after trial earlier this month by Sheriff Robert Frazer of assaulting the man in his rural Wester Ross home between June 21 and 22 last year.
The 29-year-old victim’s ordeal only came to an end when his father arrived and ordered a naked Perry to leave the property.
The court previously heard how Perry arrived at the man’s home and helped himself to alcohol before punching, slapping and kicking the man.
Things turned sinister
In evidence led by fiscal depute Naomi Duffy Welsh, the victim told the court that the pair had made contact over Grindr, and had been messaging on that platform and then via WhatsApp for around two months before the incident.
He said their conversations had been “friendly” before Perry suggested a “spur of the moment” visit to the man’s village home.
The man said that when he met Perry off the bus he seemed “jovial” but was loud.
“He shouted a bit, but I thought that was just excitement,” the man told the court.
The court heard how Perry helped himself to alcohol he found in the man’s kitchen, drinking first gin and then Jack Daniels.
But the mood began to change when Perry “started joking around with knives” in the kitchen, and then began to get physical with his victim.
“I told him to stop a couple of times when he was getting a bit too rough,” the man said adding: “Initially I thought he was just being excitable.”
Panicked texts to mum
But the witness told Sheriff Frazer: “Afterwards it became much more sinister. When he was starting to punch and kick, that became far less jokey on his part.
“That was when I was saying ‘stop, enough, be gentle’. I was quite forceful with my words.”
But Perry paid little heed to the man’s protestations and the attacks continued “until the early morning” despite the man performing a massage on Perry and sharing his bed with him.
“He would wake me up and assault me several times,” the witness said, describing how Perry’s punches got “harder” when he failed to respond to them.
“Regardless of my protestations, he would just continue.”
The man told the court that he was reluctant to seek help during the night, fearing that Perry would react badly.
He said: “The idea of calling the police had raised in my mind, I was concerned that he would know what I was doing and become deadly violent.”
The man eventually sent a text to his mother in the morning: “Hi this is urgent, can you call the police please. This a******* has been hurting me all night, pinching, punching, kicking and slapping me.”
This was followed by three further texts which read: “Now!!!!”, “Help!!!!” and “Please help!!!!”
As a result of the texts, the man’s father went to his home and escorted a naked Perry from the property – noting that he was “slurring” and “didn’t seem to put up any resistance” before gathering the man’s clothes and putting those outside as well.
Perry denied attack
Describing his son’s demeanour to the court, the dad said: “Being autistic he doesn’t show a lot of emotion.
“You could see he was shaken.”
As well as the community service, Sheriff Robert Frazer also placed Perry under social work supervision for a year.
Sheriff Frazer told him: “You were convicted after trial of an assault on an individual who was not well known to you.
“It was because of your record for domestic violence that I deferred sentence for a report.
“I note that you have little recollection of events but it was obvious from the complainer’s evidence that he was in a state of fear and alarm.”
Perry, of Ardival Court, Strathpeffer, denied the assaults during a police interview but gave no spoken evidence during the trial, with his defence conducted by solicitor John MacColl.
