Instructor jailed for abusing 14 learner drivers
‘You show no remorse’
A DRIVING instructor who sexually abused 14 young women was yesterday jailed for four years.
Neil Addison, 55, left his victims traumatised following the assaults in Fife. The attacks only stopped when one of his students told her sister – who had also been targeted by him – that he had groped her. They then went to the police.
At Dundee Sheriff Court yesterday, Addison was also placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely. Sheriff Tom Hughes said: ‘They looked to you to guide them, paid you good money to do so. You took advantage of each and every one.
‘The evidence suggests you were grooming them – on the first lessons, you were friendly and pleasant; and as time passed, you took more and more advantage of them. It is noteworthy that over time your assaults escalated.
‘You show no remorse and don’t accept the harm you caused. Your victims can take great pride that they gave evidence in a dignified manner and the jury believed each and every one of them.’
A string of young women told the court strikingly similar stories of starting lessons with ‘friendly’ Addison – only for him to begin groping them a few weeks into their tuition.
But Addison flatly denied touching ‘of a sexual nature’ and claimed to police he was only giving his students a ‘reassuring pat’.
But one victim said she had refused to get back in a car with him after he touched her.
Others said they only persisted with their lessons with him because they had already booked their driving tests and paid for blocks of lessons.
Addison, of Cupar, Fife, denied a total of 15 charges on indictment, committed between June 2014 and August 2017 during car journeys across north-east Fife.
One of the charges was withdrawn at the end of the Crown case after the court heard the alleged victim had emigrated to Australia.
The jury of eight men and seven women took only one hour and 45 minutes to find Addison guilty of all 14 remaining charges.
He showed no emotion as he was led to the cells in handcuffs.