Trial told of leg touching during driving lessons

COURT: Fife instructor accused of sexually assaulting students in car

I didn’t want to get back in a car with him – that was my last lesson with him

A driving instructor has gone on trial accused of sexually assaulting 15 of his students during their lessons.

Neil Addison is alleged to have groped a number of young women during driving lessons he was conducting in Fife over more than three years.

Five alleged victims gave evidence at Dundee Sheriff Court on the first day of his trial.

One told a jury Addison repeatedly brushed his hands over her breast after telling her she had hair on her.

Two told how over the course of a series of lessons Addison had started out touching them on the knee before gripping the tops of their thighs after becoming more “comfortable”.

Other alleged victims said they only persisted with their lessons with him as they had already booked their driving tests and paid for blocks of lessons.

The fifth to give evidence said Addison had grabbed her with his fingers on the inside of her thighs, touching her private parts.

Addison’s lawyer asked how she would respond if he suggested Addison had only tapped her leg.

She replied: “I would laugh in your face.”

One of the women, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court she started lessons with Addison in March 2016.

She said he was “friendly enough” in the beginning, but things turned “the longer they went on”.

The 20-year-old said: “If I did something well he would reach over and give you like an encouraging squeeze.

“The longer I went the higher his hand would go and the longer he would leave it.

“The longer it went on the more comfortable he got and he was thinking ‘she’s not pushing me away – I’ll move up and leave it for longer’.

“It got to the point he was at the top of my thigh.

“When I passed my test I was given the papers and he sat with the back of his hand resting on my crotch as he read them.”

Another woman, 22, said a month after starting her lessons with Addison he began to put his hand on her leg.

She said: “It was lower down but then it moved up a bit. On other times he touched my stomach high up, close to my boobs.

“Another time I’d just got into the car and had hair on my top. He went to brush it off – it was over my breast area.”

He brushed it off a few times until she said “that’s enough”, the court heard.

A third woman said Addison had touched and squeezed her upper thigh for around “eight to 12 seconds” as she negotiated a roundabout.

She said: “I didn’t want to get back in a car with him – that was my last lesson with him.”

Addison, 55, of Holly Park, Cupar, denied a total of 15 charges on indictment, allegedly committed between June 2014 and August last year during car journeys across north-east Fife.

The trial, before Sheriff Tom Hughes and a jury of eight men and seven women, continues.