Spared jail after attacking three of ex partners Businessman to do unpaid work

A Perthshire businessman who attacked three of his former partners during a 13-year reign of terror has escaped a jail term.

Instead, 41-year-old Jamie Doak, of Ruthven Street, Auchterarder, was ordered to complete 240 hours of unpaid work as part of a Community Payback Order.

Sheriff Christopher Shead also directed that Doak be supervised for two years by a social worker and will have to take part in the Caledonian Project which works with those convicted of domestic abuse.

But the sentence brought immediate condemnation from local Tory MSP Liz Smith who said it “made no sense.”

She added: “It sends out completely the wrong message to domestic abusers in Scotland.

“This is soft-touch justice at its worst,” she blasted.

Operations manager Doak, who claimed he had “never raised his hands to any woman,” was convicted of four charges of assaulting the three women - Julie Mailer, Joanna Perrett and Joanna Chac - after several days of evidence in a jury trial.

But more serious historic charges of abducting one of them and harassing a second were found not proven at Perth Sheriff Court.

The jury of 10 men and five women took more than four hours to reach their verdicts.

The accused, a welder to trade, had faced a total of 11 charges alleging that he used violence towards the women.

He was found guilty of assaulting Julie Mailer at a house in Garth Terrace, Auchterarder, and during a car journey between Blackford and Auchterarder on various occasions between June 3, 2001, and August 10, 2005.

He seized her on the body and pushed and pulled her about, all to her injury, pushed her head against the car window on one occasion and on another threw a TV set towards her.

He also repeatedly pushed and seized Joanna Perret on the body on various occasions between October 7, 2006, and January 31, 2008, August 10, 2005, at the Dunning Hotel and at a flat in St Ninian’s Court, Heathcote Road, Crieff, all to her injury. He again attacked the same woman at the same house in Heathcote Road on January 5 or 6, 2008, by pushing and pulling her about and throwing her to the ground, to her injury.

But part of the charge which alleged that he abducted her, unplugged all the phones in the house and refused to allow her to leave was deleted.

Doak also struck Ms Chac with household items and seized her by the body on various occasions between September 1, 2008, and May 31, 2014, at properties in Heathcote Road, Crieff, Glenorchil Place, Auchterarder, and four different houses in Blackford.

But an allegation that he grabbed her by the neck and on one occasion pushed her against a wall and restricted her breathing was deleted.

Part-way through the trial, following legal submissions from defence lawyer David Holmes, the sheriff ruled there was “no case to answer” to a charge of abducting Ms Chac by refusing to allow her to leave flats in Crieff and Blackford on various occasions between March 28, 2008, and September 11, 2012.

It had been alleged that he locked the doors and left her without keys.

Charges of abducting Ms Chac at a house in Moray Street, Blackford, on one occasion between September 1 and 30, 2012, and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by repeatedly telephoning her and loitering outside her home between December 13, 2010, and April 18, 2015, were both found not proven.