Cupboard sex attack schoolboy molested two other teenagers
A SEX offender who was given an absolute discharge after assaulting a schoolgirl in a stationery cupboard has been sentenced for molesting two other teenagers.
The case of Karl Henderson, now 18, caused anger last year when a sheriff refused to put him on the sex offenders’ register – despite his admission that he had molested a classmate at Denny High School.
His victim, Shannon Rooney, waived her right to anonymity and said Sheriff John Mundy’s move made her look like a liar. The incident occurred in January 2013 after Henderson, then 16, trapped Shannon in the cupboard and took her phone away.
Sheriff Mundy’s decision was overturned after the Crown appealed on the grounds of undue leniency, and the Court of Appeal ordered Henderson to be placed on supervision and the sex offenders’ register for a year.
But Henderson was found guilty of indecently assaulting another two girls earlier this year and sentencing was deferred until yesterday.
Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that one of the new victims came forward after hearing of what Henderson did to Shannon.
The girl, now 17, told the court she was left shaking after he talked his way into her bedroom, asked for a hug, picked her up ‘slid her down his front’, put his hands on her bottom and pushed her onto her bed.
She said: ‘Our bodies were touching. I could feel his private area. It made me feel sick.’ The incident occurred in August or September 2013, seven or eight months after Shannon’s ordeal.
After the case was reported, officers trawled through records and came across an incident in 2010,
‘It made me
feel sick’
when Henderson, then an Explorer Scout, had touched up a 15-yearold Scout j unior l eader in a Stirlingshire Scout hall.
They tracked down the girl, now a 20-year old dental nurse, who also gave evidence at a two- day trial. Henderson, of Denny, Stirlingshire, who denied indecently assaulting the junior Scout leader and sexually assaulting the girl in her bedroom, did not give evidence.
But the court was played a tape of an interview by police after his arrest in which he verbally attacked his victims.
He said: ‘I’d just like to say they are both being vindictive.
‘I can’t believe it’s happening again. I didn’t do it.’
He told officers the girl in the most recent offence was ‘attention seeking’ and the girl in the Scouts was ‘a smooth-talking liar’.
Finding Henderson guilty, Sheriff Kenneth McGowan said he formed a ‘good impression’ of the girl in the Scouts, whose evidence was backed by that of the Scoutmistress.
Of the second girl, he said: ‘I have concluded that she, too, is to be believed.’
Gordon Addison, defending, said Henderson had been ‘ostracised’ as a result of the previous case and though once a promising musician, he had been unable to complete his education and was now working in a wood yard.
He said: ‘His health has deteriorated and he suffers from high blood pressure.’
Sheriff Kenneth McGowan sentenced Henderson to a community pay back order with supervision for a period of 12 months, and placed him on the sex offenders’ register.