A Peterhead man who volunteered as an after-school sports club coach sexually assaulted two women and one child.
Callum Bruce was found guilty after going on trial at Peterhead Sheriff Court on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old had fought the charges that included allegations he touched two women on the buttocks and kissed a 13-year-old girl in his car last year.
Now, Bruce is waiting to learn his punishment, which will be revealed at a sentencing hearing next month.
Throughout the one-day trial, his defence solicitor, Stuart Flowerdew, suggested his client was “socially awkward” – someone who was not as able as others to pick up on social cues.
‘I just got weird vibes off him’
The victims, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, all agreed with Mr Flowerdew’s description.
Bruce’s teenage victim, whom he touched on the leg, hugged, and kissed on the mouth in his car on November 28, told the court he gave her “weird vibes”.
She had raised the alarm to an adult friend, another of Bruce’s victims, on the night it happened before blocking him on all social media platforms.
The teen also told her parents what had unfolded, including Bruce asking her if she wanted an “adult kiss”.
Giving evidence by video link in a closed courtroom, she said: “To be honest, [he] was just someone I had to tolerate.
“I didn’t get on with him. After two or three lifts, I just got weird vibes off him.”
The two women Bruce assaulted were touched inappropriately by him during a night out in Aberdeen two months before the girl’s ordeal.
One of the women was later touched a second time, again on the buttocks, outside a primary school in Peterhead.
The first adult victim said Bruce “groped” her while they were riding an escalator in Aberdeen’s Union Square shopping centre on the way to a restaurant.
He grabbed her again in Cheerz Bar on Exchange Street.
“[I] never, ever indicated anything relation-wise, or interest, to Callum at all,” she said.
“It wasn’t long. A second or two, maybe. There was definitely a physical touch. It was like a hold. It was a grab on the bum. It’s not something that you can misconstrue.
“I told him not to touch what he can’t afford. He laughed.”
‘I told him nothing will ever happen between us’
She added that she had warned Bruce off his romantic pursuit of her just a week prior, when he and another male had joked about his interest in the woman.
“It’s not something I ever wanted or encouraged,” she added. “He was the same age as my child. I told him nothing will ever happen between us.
“I made sure I said ‘nothing would ever happen, so don’t get your hopes up’.”
At Cheerz, she told the court that Bruce groped her bottom “a few times” despite repeatedly trying to make space between herself and him on the dancefloor.
A second woman, who was also on the night out in question, told the court she was groped as they walked back to the Ibis Hotel together through Union Street.
It happened a second time outside a Peterhead primary school where Bruce was volunteering as a sports coach with a local group.
“He put his arm around me and put his hand on my bum,” she said.
“He rested his hand fully on my left bum cheek. I moved away from him. It was a squeeze, and then I moved away.”
‘He lay his hand on my bum again’
Her second run-in with Bruce occurred on November 27, just one day before the teenager was assaulted in his car.
The woman told the court that her mother had received bad health news, and she thought Bruce was going in to comfort her about the diagnosis.
“He lay his hand on my bum again,” she said.
“It was always like he was going in to put a hand on my shoulder. I was quite upset. I was going through that, and that happened again.”
Mr Flowerdew, under cross-examination, put to her that Bruce was being excluded by the rest of the group during their night out and that none of the things they alleged he did had happened in the way they had described.
“That’s totally untrue,” she responded, adding: “We were aware [of his social unawareness]. We tried to include him. We were including him in all the conversations.
“There was always one of us with him, up until the Cheerz incident.”
‘Angry’ dad phoned Bruce to confront him
Other witnesses included the father of the teenage victim and a male who accompanied Bruce and the two women on the night out in Aberdeen, who said he saw Bruce touch one of the women on the escalator.
The teen’s dad said he was “angry” about what had happened to his daughter and phoned Bruce twice to speak to him before he got a return call.
“She was quite upset and I kind of got angry, obviously, when she told me,” he said.
“He basically said that wasn’t the case, that wasn’t true. He said, ‘No, that’s not right. ‘
“The conversation ended with me telling him when he reaches Aberdeen that day to tell the police what he’s done. And, if not, it’s probably best to leave Peterhead.”
Bruce, who said he works full-time as an electrician technician, chose to give evidence as the trial reached its conclusion.
Under questioning from his defence agent and the prosecutor, fiscal depute Alan Townsend, Bruce denied sexually assaulting anyone and said he was unaware of any issues from the night out in Aberdeen.
Speaking about his encounter outside the primary school, he said the woman involved had approached him after he crashed his car and broke up with a long-term girlfriend.
‘None of the stuff that’s been said in this court happened’
“[She] came over to me, just to see how I was physically, mentally,” he claimed. “She hugged – both her hands around my neck. I then hugged her in return.”
Regarding the incident the following day, Bruce admitted he had hugged the teenager in his car, but only to console her because she was upset at the time about a family issue.
“She was getting more and more upset,” he said.
On why she told the police more than a hug happened, Bruce suggested she may have been “influenced” by the two other women’s allegations against him.
“None of the stuff that’s been said in this court happened,” Bruce insisted.
Bruce’s defence blamed victims for ‘misunderstanding the situation’
Sheriff Annella Cowan found Bruce guilty of all charges.
She branded his defence evidence as “contradictory” with “more than a tendency to blame other witnesses for misunderstanding the situation”.
The sheriff said the evidence presented to prosecute Bruce had offered “a clear, corroborated description of events”.
She ordered background reports on Bruce to be produced by the social work department ahead of his sentencing next month.
In the meantime, Bruce, of Prunier Drive in Peterhead, will be subject to the notification requirements of the sex offenders register.