Businessman who groomed and then molested children declared bankrupt

denials: David Glass claimed his accusers were only after his money... which is now gone

A Fife businessman who groomed a family’s children has gone bust with £600,000 debts after being jailed for a campaign of horrific abuse. David Glass was locked up for five years in January following his conviction for sexually assaulting three boys. The 59-year-old, of Anstruther, has been declared bankrupt after it emerged he had run up a string of unpaid debts before he was sent to prison. Glass, who ran plant hire, building and commercial property businesses, owes £602,902 to creditors, who have not been named, and he has declared he has no assets to pay off his debts. He applied for his own bankruptcy from his cell at Perth prison and it was approved by the Accountant In Bankruptcy, Scotland’s insolvency service, earlier this month. Glass had claimed in court he was targeted by his victims for money because he was a wealthy businessman. His trial at Dundee Sheriff Court heard he befriended his victims’ parents when they were suffering ‘personal difficulties’ and was allowed to spend time alone with the youngsters. But he subjected two victims to repeated sexual assaults at his caravan in the East Neuk. The abuse happened over almost two years in the late 1980s, only ending when one of the children died in 1989. The court also heard that in the mid1990s, Glass targeted another boy, abusing him from the age of nine until he was 11. The child was molested and forced to bathe with Glass. Glass denied all the charges against him but a jury found him guilty of four charges on indictment of lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour. Glass was convicted of a string of virtually identical offences at Dunfermline Sheriff Court in September 2014. The crimes were committed in the East Neuk over eight years, beginning in 2004. He was sentenced to threeand-a-half years and released in early 2016. Following his conviction, a family member of one of the victims said: “He tried to make out in court that he was a businessman being targeted by the boys for money. “The boys were so brave to stand up and tell the jury what happened to them. The jury believed them – they didn’t believe Glass. “When he gets out next time he won’t be welcome back in the area. He has been exposed now.” Glass, who was branded a ‘danger to children’, will be subject to one year’s extended licence upon his release and was put on the sex offenders register for life. Sentencing him, Sheriff Tom Hughes said: “You groomed them, purchased them gifts and won their confidence and carefully manipulated them into a situation where you could carry out this criminal conduct – conduct no child should ever have to endure. “You whatsoever take no responsibility for the and you blame others position you find yourself in. “There is no merit in your denials. In my view you are a danger to children. Your offending has had a catastrophic effect on your victims in this case.” A bankruptcy trustee has been appointed to probe Glass’s finances in an attempt to recover money for creditors.

Disgraced Fife businessman David Glass.