An Inverness man jailed for indecently assaulting a teenage girl has appealed against his sentence.
Earlier this year Ian Shand admitted fondling a girl as she slept on a sofa in a house in South Kessock in 2014.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard that the 31-year-old claimed he had mistaken the youngster for an older woman.
He was jailed in February for 10 months by Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood and placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
First offender Shand, whose address was given in court as Glendoe Terrace in Inverness, has now appealed against the sentence.
His case will be heard at a hearing in Edinburgh next Tuesday.
Shand initially pleaded guilty in January at Inverness Sheriff Court and was sentenced the following month.
At the time, fiscal Roderick Urquhart told the court that the assault came to light when Shand went to police to ask for advice after he received a text accusing him of being a “rapist” and told officers his story.
Mr Urquhart added: “But the other witnesses do not back up his story of mistaken identity.”
He told the court that there were significant physical differences between the two women.
Defence solicitor, Duncan Henderson tried to persuade the sheriff to impose a non-custodial sentence. He said: “He is a first offender, it was a single offence for a short period of time and he himself went to the police.”
However, Sheriff Fleetwood criticised Shand’s attitude to his crime because he did not accept he was a sex offender.
Delivering his sentence, the sheriff said: “I have to regard this as a nasty sexual assault on a young girl and only a custodial sentence is appropriate.”
