Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
OAP’s guilty of violent attacks
Jury verdict on Airdrie accused, 69
A despicable Airdrie pensioner has been convicted of waging a brutal campaign of domestic violence against two women over a 20-year period.
A jury at the High Court in Livingston this week returned majority verdicts, finding 69-year-old Joseph Gallacher guilty of carrying out four serious assaults between 1969 and 1989.
One of the attacks on a woman he was in a relationship with put her life in danger after he strangled her.
The jury found four other assault charges – two of them to the danger of the alleged victims’ life – not proven.
They also returned a majority not proven verdict on a charge alleging that the pensioner indecently assaulted a nine-year-old boy.
Gallacher, of Whinhall, had denied a total of 20 charges including raping four females and indecently assaulting a nine year-old boy.
During the trial, Judge Lord Bannatyne rejected the prosecution’s claim that the similarities and circumstances of the rapes provided mutual corroboration and acquitted him of the charges.
Gallacher was also cleared of nine other offences after the Crown withdrew the charges.
Following the verdicts, the court was told that Gallacher, of Wester Mavisbank Avenue, had 31 previous convictions, many of them for assault, and many with domestic aggravations.
Lord Bannatyne called for criminal justice social work reports and released Gallacher on bail with special conditions not to contact his victims.
Gallacher will now be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on December 13.