Pervert groped girl among store toys
A sexual predator who targeted young girls in the aisles of a supermarket was jailed for two years and nine months.
Michael Glavin admitted groping a seven year old as she played in the toy section at Tesco in Bathgate on August 15.
Shortly afterwards Glavin approached two 12 year olds in the same store.
He told them they were “gorgeous” and made sexual comments before they hurried off and contacted an adult.
After Glavin’s victims pointed him out to store management staff found him holding a nightie in one hand and pleasuring himself with the other.
They detained him until police arrived to arrest him.
Andy Aitken, defending, said Glavin accepted that his actions must have caused “significant distress and upset” to the girls.
He added: “In his sober and lucid state he fully accepts that.
“His position is remorseful. He’s apologetic and he describes his attitude towards himself as one of disgust.”
Mr Aitken said Glavin had “self- medicated” for depression by consuming a large quantity of drugs he had bought off the internet.
He added: “This disinhibited him and raised his libido. The author of the psychiatric report says this allowed a deep-rooted attraction to children to assert itself.”
Glavin, an IT expert who worked for the National Health Service and the Ministry of Defence, showed no emotion as he was jailed at Livingston Sheriff Court.
The 47 year old was told he would remain subject to close supervision by social workers for three years after his release from prison.
He was warned that if he breaches any of the strict conditions he will be sent back to jail.
His name will also remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.
Sheriff Kenneth McIver told Glavin, a prisoner in Edinburgh: “I can’t stress too much how much the court has to take a serious view of sexual offending against very young children and offending of this type, which clearly indicated that you were looking for children who were complete strangers to you for the purpose of committing these crimes against them.
“There was no connection between you and the children. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and encountered you when you were behaving in a sexually-predatory manner.
“For reasons which only you can understand they seem to be connected to you taking illicit substances and behaving in a way you wouldn’t otherwise have behaved.
“It’s fortunate the children had the presence of mind to get away from you as they did and to run to their parents and report you.”
The sheriff said a prison sentence was “absolutely essential”.
He added: “This is offending which has caused fear and alarm to children and to their immediate family, also the alarm to the general public caused by sexual offending towards young children in a public place on more than one occasion where more than one child was involved.
“That places it in a category of gravity which I have to recognise.
“The appropriate starting point for any sentence will be one of four years imprisonment. I’ll make the full one-third reduction which is appropriate for your immediate acceptance of a guilty plea.”
He said the sentence would be backdated to August 19, when Glavin was first remanded in custody.
It’s fortunate the children had the presence of mind to get away from you