BBC T V series star guilty of sex attacks on female employees
A FORMER policeman who starred in a BAFTA-winning BBC series has been found guilty of carrying out sex attacks on several women.
Charles Pirie – whose business ran security during a recent visit to Scotland by the Queen – is facing jail after targeting vulnerable women who worked for him.
A jury found the 65-year-old guilty of sexually abusing five women over a sixyear period while he was running outdoor pursuits and security stewarding firm Atholl Adventures.
Pirie, who wrote a book based on The Gamekeeper series in which he starred, employed around 200 people and picked out young women in their 20s to target.
One victim described how Pirie persuaded her to travel to Fort William,
‘He crept into her tent and groped her’
Inverness-shire, on a work trip within days of starting with one of his companies.
She was deeply concerned when they arrived at a hotel to discover he had only booked one room.
The woman, who was visibly upset as she gave evidence at Perth Sheriff Court, said she had no option but to stay in the room with Pirie, as bad weather meant they were snowed in.
She said there were single beds and she tried to go to sleep. But Pirie plagued her with sexual innuendo and invited her over to his bed to perform sex acts on him.
The woman refused his sleazy advances and reported his behaviour when she got home. Police were called in and a largescale probe discovered a string of victims going back several years.
Pirie got the women alone and sexually assaulted them at events where his company was working, including a Rob Roy event, the Glamis Country Fair and at The Hermitage beauty spot in Dunkeld, Perthshire.
The jury was told that Pirie exploited his position as a powerful employer to pick on young women who were grateful for the work and were afraid to report him.
Another victim described how she was camping near Killin, in Perthshire, when Pirie crept into her tent and groped her as she struggled to fend him off.
Yet another woman told the jury that Pirie spent more than a year bombarding her with filthy suggestions about sex acts he wanted her to carry out on him.
He then cornered her at the Glamis Country Fair and seized her and kissed her on the face before a struggle as she tried to break free from his grasp.
Fiscal depute John Malpass told the court that each of the women had been the subject of ‘a pattern of behaviour’ at various times between 2008 and 2013.
Pirie, of Ballinluig, Perthshire, had denied all of the charges but was found guilty of six out of the seven he faced.
Sentence was deferred for reports by Sheriff William Wood, who told Pirie: ‘You will appreciate the jury has found you guilty in relation to six of these seven charges and that represents a course of conduct which the court must take very seriously.’
Pirie, who worked in Perthshire for several years as a special con- stable for Tayside Police, was placed on the sex offenders’ register.
He was the main focus of the acclaimed BBC documentary The Gamekeeper, which was filmed on Atholl Estates, Blair Atholl, during the 1990s.
He later founded Atholl Adventures and hired another former police officer as operations manager. The company was hired to marshall the Queen’s visit to Perth in 2012.
A source close to the case said: ‘Charlie Pirie was nothing more than a sexual bully, picking on women who were afraid to stand up to him or report him.
‘He thought he was untouchable and could get away with it because each incident happened away from the gaze of independent witnesses.
‘But the incidents the women described in court were so similar in nature that each proved there had been a pattern of offending over many years. It’s an inglorious end for a very successful businessman.’
‘He thought he was untouchable’