The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Ex-bar and restaurant owner jailed for rape
Man ‘hotly denied’ any criminality but jury rejected his claims
The former owner of a Broughty Ferry pub and restaurant has been jailed for five years for rape.
Andy Keir, ex-boss of Bruach, forced himself on his victim while she was asleep at his home in Monifieth.
The woman woke to find Keir performing a sex act on her. He then raped her. Keir, 38, pictured, continued to “hotly deny” any criminality at the High Court in Glasgow where he maintained the act had been consensual.
His claims were rejected by a jury, who found him guilty of raping the woman while she was intoxicated, asleep and incapable of giving her consent.
As well as being jailed, Keir, who resigned as director of Dundee-based pub operator DD5 last year, has been placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely. Judge Douglas Brown said: “This crime was committed when you were running a business and followed a night out drinking.
“She was so keen to get out of your house she didn’t gather up all of her clothes.
“The battery on her phone was dead but as soon as she got to a public phone box she dialled 999 and reported a crime of rape. She was obviously very distressed.”
Aformer Broughty Ferry pub owner has been jailed for rape. Andy Keir, the ex-boss of Bruach who resigned as director of Dundee-based pub operator DD5 Ltd last year, forced himself on his victim while she slept at his home in Monifieth.
The woman woke – not knowing where she was or who she was with – and found Keir performing a sex act on her. He then raped her.
Glasgow High Court heard 38-year-old Keir continued to “hotly deny” any criminality, maintaining the act had been consensual.
However, a jury rejected his claims and found him guilty of raping the woman while she was intoxicated, asleep and incapable of giving her consent, on November 11 2019.
Keir, now of Pathhead, Midlothian, was jailed for five years and placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
Judge Douglas Brown said: “This crime was committed when you were running a business and followed a night out drinking.
“After the victim became heavily intoxicated you went back to your house with her.”
The judge said jurors heard the woman was disorientated when she woke at Keir’s then-home in Muirnwood Place to find him sexually assaulting her.
He told Keir: “You then lay on top of her and raped her. She was so keen to get out of your house she didn’t gather up all of her clothes.
“The battery on her phone was dead but as soon as she got to a public phone box she dialled 999. She was obviously very distressed.”
The judge told Keir: “Your defence that this sexual activity was consensual was wholly rejected by the jury.
“Rape is an offence that is taken very seriously by this court and any sentence imposed must reflect the gravity of the crime.”
Keir’s defence counsel said the rape followed a “night filled with intimacy” between Keir and his victim.
The court was told both had been ejected from a pub that night for having sex in the toilets.
The lawyer added the victim at one point told jurors she may have only been asleep for a matter of seconds.
However, Judge Brown told the solicitor: “I am concerned by the suggestion that this event was less significant because she had consented earlier in the evening.”
The defence counsel said although Keir “hotly denied” any crime, he knew that prison was the only realistic outcome.
At the start of the 2020 Covid lockdown – four months after the rape was reported to police – Keir helped set up a foodbanklike scheme with other landlords to support stuckat-home residents in Broughty Ferry.
He was also among a group of 45 bartenders who took part in a charity cycle from Florence to Rome.