Man who molested teenage girl jailed for a year

A man who followed a 15-year-old girl into a toilet before sexually assaulting her was jailed for a year when he appeared at Lerwick Sheriff Court this week.

James Taylor, 39, of Sandveien, Lerwick, had previously admitted to repeatedly grabbing the girl’s breast and kissing her on the mouth at a party in a bedsit in the town’s Union Street on 1st November last year.

During the party, Taylor had been sitting next to the girl and as the night wore on, he moved closer to her and kept placing his hand on her thigh. When she went to the toilet, he followed her in and locked the door behind them before molesting her.

When he was later detained by police, Taylor admitted touching the girl and asking her to come home with him. He said she had told him she was 17 but he later admitted that another adult present at the party had told him she was only 15.

Defence agent Tommy Allan said Taylor, who had been on remand since 25th March pending sentence, had had a difficult upbringing and was yet to come to terms with events from the past where he was a victim but that spending his first time behind bars in the last few weeks had been a “serious wake-up” for him.

Sheriff Graeme Napier told Taylor that he had been guilty of a “very serious” offence regardless of the girl’s age and that he had insisted on making advances towards the girl when “she was clearly not interested in you”. He added that there was “no sense you are aware of the impact your behaviour has had”.

He reduced the prison sentence from 18 months because of the guilty plea and Taylor will also be placed on the sex offenders’ register and added to a list of people who are deemed unsuitable for working with children.