A pensioner who subjected a girl to an eight-year ordeal of sexual offending in a Highland village told a court yesterday he would appeal his conviction.
William Mackay was found guilty of three indecency offences, beginning when the child was aged seven.
Mackay, 70, rubbed himself against the girl, exposed himself and carried out sex acts in her presence at a house in Muir of Ord.
Mackay, a prisoner, had denied the charges and other sex crime allegations during a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh but was found guilty of three offences of historical abuse committed between 1986 and 1994.
A jury acquitted him of three further charges, which included allegations of rape.
After the verdict was returned, Mackay, who appeared in the dock with the aid of a walking stick, announced he would seek to appeal before being led to the cells.
Judge Graeme Buchanan QC told the pensioner that he would be remanded in custody while a background report was prepared on him ahead of sentencing in January. A psychologist’s report will also be available.
Defence counsel Frances McMenamin QC told the court: “He has a number of significant health problems.”
Miss McMenamin said that apart from physical problems it had become clear in preparing for the case that he also had short term memory difficulties and had been seen by a psychologist who specialised in that field.
“The trial was to take place earlier this year but it was obvious certain difficulties were beginning to manifest themselves,” she said.
The judge told jurors that it had been a “somewhat unpleasant case”. He placed Mackay on the sex offenders’ register.
