A pub owner seduced a 15-year-old girl while his wife was on holiday with his children.
And former Gleneagles Hotel head waiter Mark Turner carried on seeing the schoolgirl until his wife Dawn caught him red-handed. She walked into the bar to find Turner, 38, clutching a love letter he was about to pass to the girl.
Perth Sheriff Court heard yesterday that Turner had taken advantage of the girl because she had a crush on him.
He admitted having unlawful sex with her at the Kirkstyle Inn, Dunning, on several occasions. He was jailed for six months.
Fiscal depute Iain Smith said the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was a friend of Turner's 13-year-old step-daughter. The girl told police investigating the relationship that she had initially viewed Turner as a father figure who was easy to talk to from 1997, when he bought the pub. By Christmas 1998 they were kissing and cuddling.
In April last year, his wife, who lived in the pub, went on holiday with her family, leaving Turner alone to run it.
The publican invited the girl to his bedroom, where they had sex. When his wife returned from holiday she caught her husband trying to pass a love note to the teenager in the bar.
The matter was reported to police.
Defence agent Rory Cowan said his client realised he had abused his position as an adult.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article