Assault in car park

Man on sex offenders’register

A man who indecently assaulted a woman in a Hamilton car park has been put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Ryan Johnstone was also ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid community work, with Sheriff Daniel Kelly warning him it was a direct alternative to a prison sentence.

Johnstone (43), of Morven Road, Cambuslang, had stood trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court in March.

He was cleared of jumping through a bedroom window and sexually assaulting a woman.

The woman told a jury she “freaked out” when the intruder woke her in the middle of the night, but the charge was dropped by the Crown midway through the trial.

The jury did find him guilty of assaulting the same woman in a car park four weeks previously, but deleted an allegation that he did so with intent to rape her.

The court heard Johnstone’s pal Thomas Mcguigan – nicknamed Tom Tom – was having a sexual relationship with the woman at the time of the incidents.

The woman told Paula Russell, prosecuting, she was sleeping in her ground floor Hamilton flat when she was wakened by someone at the window about 1am on August 23, 2016.

She thought it might be a female friend who had got into the habit of chapping on her window when she visited.

But she told the jury: “I realised it was a man who was banging on the window. I put on my housecoat and staggered to the window to see who it was.

“I turned the handle and the window came flying open. It hit me and I fell back.

“That man (referring to Johnstone) came flying in. He was steaming and fell on the floor. I had only ever met him once before.

“I fell on to the bed. He was trying to rip off my housecoat.

“I managed to him to get out.”

The woman claimed the only other time she had met Johnstone before this was four weeks previously when she joined him and Tom Tom to smoke a joint in a van in a car park.

She said Johnstone, without warning, exposed himself and grabbed her.

The jury found Johnstone guilty of grabbing the woman’s head and pushing it down towards his penis.

The jury heard forensic evidence agreed by the Crown and defence to the effect that DNA found on the woman’s cheek after the alleged bedroom assault was not the accused’s. Neither was male DNA found on the woman’s housecoat.

On top of that, scientists were unable to establish that DNA on a t-shirt recovered from the bedroom and said to have been worn by Johnstone was his. kick him off me and told

He was steaming and fell on the floor