Sex offender who had groomed children has prison sentence cut

Man wins appeal against jail term, though loses his bid to have conviction quashed

A businessman who went bust after being ordered to pay almost £400,000 in compensation to child sex abuse victims has succeeded in having his jail term cut.

David Glass, 59, infiltrated a family and used his position to groom children and subject them to years of abuse.

He claimed he was targeted by the boys for money but was convicted by a jury and jailed for five years – with an added one year on licence – in January.

However, Glass, of Anstruther, appealed both his conviction and sentence, claiming he had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The appeal against conviction was thrown out but his sentence has been cut by two years by Scotland’s most senior judge, who ruled the earlier term had been excessive.

Glass was jailed at Dundee Sheriff Court in January and placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Police described him as a “deviant who preyed on young children”.

Glass, who was convicted of a string of similar offences at Dunfermline Sheriff Court in September 2014, was ordered to pay £150,000 in damages with 8% interest backdated to 1986 when the crimes were first committed – working out as a final sum of £393,000.

Just months later in April it emerged he filed for bankruptcy.

Judge Lord Carloway said Sheriff Tom Hughes made a mistake by not including Glass’s early release from another jail term when sentencing him this year.

Lord Carloway, sitting alongside Lord Turnbull and Lord Brodie, said the fiveyear term imposed by Sheriff Hughes would be replaced by a three-year stretch.

Lord Carloway said: “The appellant had been released from the earlier sentence before the current sentence was imposed. The sheriff had failed to take this into account.

“It is not clear from the sheriff’s report that he did take into account the cumulative impact of the earlier sentence when selecting the custodial period of five years.

“Had he done so, he would have appreciated that the total of eight years and 10 months, even for the repeated sexual abuse of young boys in circumstances in which the convicted person had inveigled himself into a position of trust, was excessive.

“Having regard to the earlier sentence, the court will substitute a period of three years imprisonment.

“The extended element of the sentence was incompetent, having regard to the age of the offences. It requires to be quashed.”

“The appellant had been released from the earlier sentence before the current sentence was imposed. The sheriff had failed to take this into account. JUDGE LORD CARLOWAY