Court comments get Carluke flasher six more months

Comments were made to witness inside Lanark Sheriff Court

Hill, 24, of Brownlee Road, Law, was jailed for a year in September after a jury found him guilty of eight sexual offences.

And he was back in the dock at Lanark Sheriff Court on Wednesday to admit behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear and alarm by swearing at three people sitting in the public benches of that very courthouse.

That offence happened on Wednesday, August 3, weeks after Hill had been convicted of the indecency offences, committed in 2014, many of them in streets in Carluke.

He was appearing for sentence, and the girl, now 16, was in court to see what happened to him after giving evidence against him at his trial.

As Hill made his way from the public benches to the dock, he walked behind her, her mother and another relative and made the offending comment, using foul language, leaving all three feeling “fearful and intimidated”.

The case was adjourned that August morning, and the family spoke to the court police officer, who then escorted Hill out of the courtroom and told him to leave the Hope Street building.

The family later went to the police office and made a formal complaint.

In September, Hill was given a four-year extended sentence, with one year in prison and three years on licence.

He was brought out from prison on Wednesday to face the new charge.

Solicitor Craig Broadley said that Hill knew his conduct had been unacceptable and suggested he had perhaps been feeling “anxious and stressed” that day.

The solicitor added that Hill, the father of a year-old child, was due for release from prison at the earliest in March next year.

Imposing a further six months, to follow on from the original sentence, Sheriff Derek O’Carroll told Hill his conduct had been “utterly unacceptable”.

“To use that language – to use that language within the court makes it worse – but what makes it worse by far is that you used derogatory language causing fear and alarm directed at somebody whom you had already harmed, when you were up for sentencing.” he said.

There was no alternative to a further custodial sentence, Hill was told.