Man who lured driver to Law home put on sex register

David Aitchison, 39, of Hazel Grove, Law, will have to pay his victim £300 in compensation and carry out 250 hours of unpaid community work, however.

That was the sentence passed on him last Wednesday at Lanark Sheriff Court.

Sheriff Derek McIntyre told him he found it “very odd” that Aitchison should commit such a crime “despite having a a very decent family and a supportive wife”.

The court had heard that at 5pm on January 11, Aitchison had phoned a local food takeaway to order a delivery, specifying that he wanted the business’s female delivery driver to bring it to his home.

She told the court that she had arrived at 6.30pm and Aitchison opened the door wearing only a housecoat and denied having ordered the food.

He then went upstairs to get some money, but when he came back down to the door, he was “wearing his housecoat wide open”, according to the girl.

She said she had felt “disgusted” and had backed away “awkwardly” from the door, frightened to turn her back on him in case he grabbed her.

She had driven away a short distance, then had parked up, overcome by the experience, and started crying.

During his trial last month, Aitchison denied exposing himself, and the court heard it was he who involved the police in the matter after three men had later turned up at his door to remonstrate with him over the girl’s claims.

At his sentencing hearing last week, Sheriff McIntyre noted from background reports that Aitchison was still denying his guilt and told him: “I have been doing this job since 1983, and I don’t believe you. I believe the girl.”

Aitchison’s solicitor, Kevin McCann, said his client had lost his job because of the case and was so depressed that he seldom left his house.

He added that it was, indeed, his client who had first called the police when three men had visited his home while he was out.

Told of this visit by his wife on his return, he was so concerned that he contacted the police and “for a while, it seemed as if he would be the complainer in this case rather than the accused”.

Sheriff McIntyre also placed Aitchison on the sex offenders’ register and imposed a two-year community payback order on him.