Ex-police chief fined over romp in car with mistress
Pair spotted semi-naked at city park and ride site
A ‘HUMILIATED’ retired police chief caught in a steamy daylight clinch with his mistress in the back of a car was fined yesterday.
Former chief superintendent Gareth Blair, 49, was spotted ‘engaging in sexual activity’ with the 42-year-old woman at a park and ride site in Edinburgh last year.
The pair – naked from the waist up – were seen in the back seat of Blair’s Land Rover Discovery Sport by two men.
The witnesses said that they noticed the half-naked couple were ‘engaging in sexual activity’ when Blair’s vehicle began to rock back and forth.
The men, who were in their own cars, began to ‘whoop and sound their horns’.
One of them then started filming what was happening using his mobile phone.
The incident was later reported to police and the former chief superintendent, who retired from his post earlier this year, was interviewed at a station in Motherwell, Lanarkshire.
At Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday, Blair pleaded guilty to having committed a breach of the peace by engaging in sexual activity in his car while in a state of partial undress.
Sheriff Adrian Cottam told Blair that he had committed ‘a wholly inappropriate, inexplicable and reprehensible’ act and fined him £750.
However, after taking a break and deliberating for around 15 minutes, the sheriff decided not to place the former officer on the sex offenders’ register.
Explaining his decision, he told the court that in his view ‘the sexual act did not contain any sexual deviance’.
Sheriff Cottam said: ‘I do not find that the test outlined regards future public protection is met and I do not certify the offence as requiring the notification requirements to be imposed.’
Blair’s co-accused, who did not attend court, had her not guilty plea accepted by the Crown.
Prosecutor Lorraine Almond told the court how witnesses spotted Blair’s Land Rover next to a BMW at the Hermiston park and ride site at around 5.20pm on April 16 last year.
The two men had seen Blair, from Edinburgh, in the back seat with the woman ‘straddling him’ and the pair were ‘undressed from the waist up’.
The prosecutor said: ‘The Land Rover was moving and the witnesses saw the couple were engaging in sexual activity within. Both witnesses and others began to whoop and sound their horns.
‘The activity continued within the car and after some time [one witness] began to film the incident on his mobile phone.’
She said Blair was then seen to hang a piece of clothing over the window of the vehicle while ‘the activity was continuing’.
The woman was spotted leaving the Land Rover at around 7pm
‘Inexplicable and reprehensible’
and she got into the BMW and drove off, the court heard.
Blair then got into the driver’s seat of his vehicle and left the scene soon after.
The incident was later reported to police and Blair was interviewed at Motherwell police station on June 3 last year.
Defence solicitor Callum Anderson said that his client had found the court appearance and subsequent media attention to be ‘humiliating and difficult’.
He argued that Blair had already suffered ‘severe consequences’ for his actions.
Mr Anderson said the publicity had affected Blair’s attempts to gain employment since retiring from Police Scotland.
The offer of a job as an inspector investigating money laundering had been withdrawn in the wake of the incident.
Twice-married Blair was previously head of Scotland’s elite crime squad at Gartcosh Crime Campus in Lanarkshire.
He has also served on secondment in Northern Ireland.
Blair was made Edinburgh’s police divisional commander in June 2018 but was suspended from the position and replaced by Chief Superintendent Sean Scott last year.
A biography on the Police Scotland website stated that father-ofone Blair was a fitness fan who loves golf and holidays.
A spokesman for the force said last night: ‘We can confirm Mr Blair has retired.’