Domestic abuse ‘monster’ walks free from court
A SERIAL stalker and domestic abuser who terrorised four women walked free from court yesterday after a sheriff claimed the public would be better protected if he remained in the community.
Mark Boucher harassed one victim from his jail cell and threatened to decapitate any man with whom she had contact, and was branded a ‘monster’ by another woman. He was assessed as not suitable for a community sentence by social workers.
They said they did not want the 28-yearold, who twice breached a community payback order last year, to join a domestic abuse reform course because of his ‘entrenched attitudes’.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that Boucher made a string of threats to former partner Jasmine McGraw while on remand for other offences. He admitted stalking the 22-year-old, as well as ex-girlfriends Laura Walker, 37, Melissa Low and Diane Thomson, 32, all from Dundee.
But Sheriff Lorna Drummond, QC, imposed a community payback order with 230 hours of unpaid work, three years’ supervision and a three-month restriction of liberty order, and banned Boucher from contacting his victims for five years.
Sheriff Drummond told him: ‘You are not assessed as suitable for a community disposal. It is therefore my instinct to send you to jail. However, the most important thing in terms of protection of the public is to address your offending attitude. That could be done by sending you to prison and supervising you on release, but it is probably best done over a longer period in the community.’
Boucher threatened Miss McGraw while on remand. He posted a picture on Facebook of himself with a machete – then threatened to butcher her. He was spared a jail term for that offence last year.
The court heard that he repeatedly criticised Miss Low to the point where she would not go out. Miss Walker said he called her 40 times on a single night while she was out with friends, and Miss Thomson described him as a ‘monster’ and an ‘intimidating, controlling’ thug.
Scottish Tory justice spokesman Douglas Ross described the sentence as ‘baffling’. He said: ‘He poses a threat to the individuals he was stalking.’
Boucher, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to four charges of stalking committed between October 2007 and January this year at locations in Dundee, Perth and Forfar.
Solicitor advocate Jim Laverty, defending, said: ‘He understands his behaviour would have caused fear and alarm.’
After sentence, Detective Sergeant Gordon Patullo of the Domestic Abuse Task Force said: ‘Mark Boucher’s conviction and sentence should send out a clear message that Police Scotland will investigate all domestic abuse-related crimes.’