Carluke Facebook stalker is jailed for a year

On Thursday the court heard how for six months she had to endure hundreds of abusive messages from 30-year-old Scott Robertson, attacking her and her “spastic” child along with his sexual boasts about his new teenage partner.

And Robertson, of 130 Goremire Road, was lambasted by Sheriff Derek O’Carroll, not only a criminal record of offences “too long for me to count” but for forcing his ex-partner, 31-year-old Michelle Arthur, to endure having to re-live her “ordeal” in court..

Robertson, who appeared from custody, denied he charges that, from July 12 last year to January 15 this year, he sent grossly offensive Facebook messages to Ms Arthur and had caused her fear or alarm by sending these messages and that he continued his campaign even after being granted bail on September 29 last year on condition he make no further contact with her.

The Crown used two Facebook messages sent to Ms Arthur as samples of the hundreds he was alleged to have sent her after the couple’s rekationship ended in May, 2015.

In one, read out in court, Robertson called her a “junkie” and her disabled young child a “spastic” and boasted about the amount of times he’d had intercourse with his new girlfriend.

Often in tears, Ms Arthur told the court that she’d found the messages “vile” and said they’d hurt all the more “because I did everything I could to get him back on the straight-and-narrow.”

After giving up on Robertson, a series of “hundreds” of abusive messages were sent “because Scott just can’t handle rejection. He ought to just grow up.”

Robertson had used the Facebook account of his new girlfriend, 19-year-old Julie Craig, who had to be repeatedly warned she was in danger of incriminating herself in the witness box as she testified that it might have been she and not Robertson who had sent the two sample messages while she was under the influence of alcohol,

Robertson gave evidence himself, denying that he’d sent any of the absusive messages.

Sheriff O’Carroll found Robertson guilty on all three charges, telling him that he had conducted “a campaign of stalking” against Ms Arthur, an ordeal he had forced her to re-live in court. Stating “Enough is enough”, the sheriff sentenced Robertson to a year’s imprisonment and imposed a 10 year Non-Harrassment Order forbidding any contact with his victim.