Grantown businessman sentenced for fondling 17 year old girl’s breasts at party
A Grantown businessman and community stalwart has been ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid community work after he fondled a drunk 17 year old girl's breasts before forcefully kissing her mother.
Carl Stewart's dramatic fall from grace came following his conviction after trial at Inverness Sheriff Court last month of the two sex assaults and he resigned from all his community positions.
Stewart, of Kirk Road, Cromdale was also placed under six months of social work supervision and on the Sex Offender's Register for the same period by Sheriff Ian Cruickshank.
The assaults occurred after a ceilidh Stewart helped organise in Cromdale Community Hall on December 8, last year.
The owner of CFS Services which services all types of quad bikes invited the girl, her mother and some others back to his home to join him and his partner for more drinks.
But the 40 year old's trial at Inverness Sheriff Court heard that the teenager was intoxicated and went to his toilet, first to phone a friend and then remaining there as she felt sick.
The girl told fiscal depute Martina Eastwood that she heard a knock on the closed door and she turned round.
"Carl was there and he asked if I was okay. I said yeah and we talked. He crouched in front of me. I was passing out but not completely. I had quite a lot to drink and I was tired.
"His legs and arms were round each side of me. He had one hand round my stomach and one round my collar bone.
"He was saying I shouldn't wear make-up, fake eyelashes or hair extensions and his hand was going higher up on my chest - stroking.
"I was freaking out and I acted like I was spewing."
The girl began crying as she recalled Stewart pulling her neck towards him. One of the times I woke up he kept telling me to kiss him and I said no. He kissed my cheek then my neck and my mouth.
"Then someone came into the bathroom."
The girl said her ordeal lasted about 35 minutes and denied to Stewart's solicitor, Sam Morrison, that Stewart was only trying to comfort her and that she was lying.
"He did what I said he did," she told Sheriff Ian Cruickshank.
Her mother told the court that she did not think her daughter was that drunk and Stewart came to the kitchen to get a glass of water for the teenager.
"He grabbed me forcefully by the shoulder and kissed me on the mouth using his tongue. I was shocked and I snatched my head to the side, telling him to f..k off and behave, and pushed him back.
"He just laughed. He was quite merry. My daughter was lying in a bedroom and when I went to her, she said: 'Please don't leave me here’."
She denied a suggestion by Ms Morrison that she had ‘platonically kissed him’.
Stewart gave evidence and insisted he did not do what he had been accused of and said the bathroom door was open all the time he was in the bathroom with the girl.
Asked if he had touched the girl, he replied: "Absolutely not".
He insisted he was only comforting her as she felt ill.
Stewart added: "I wouldn't want to kiss someone who was being sick."
He claimed the mother thanked him, hugged him and then "gave me a kiss like one you would give to your granny."
Questioned by Ms Eastwood, he insisted he did not ‘lay hands on her’.
Ms Eastwood asked: "Why would you sit with her for 20 or 30 minutes when there were other women and her mother there?"
He said he was only trying to help the mother.