Convicted offender found guilty of sexual assaults against teenage boy

A convicted sex offender has been found guilty of molesting a teenage boy while he slept at a house in Kinross-shire.

Lucas Cole, who was prosecuted under his old name Oliver Bond, went on to sexually assault the same person twice over the next four years.

The 32-year-old, from Cardenden, denied indecently and sexually assaulting him, claiming the acts were consensual.

However, a jury at Perth Sheriff Court found Cole guilty of all three charges.

Three years ago, Cole was convicted – under the name Oliver Bond – of sexually assaulting a transgender woman at a flat in Perth.

The same woman gave evidence during this trial to help corroborate testimony from Cole’s latest victim. The trial heard Cole, who identifies as non-binary and was referred to as “they”, had been friends with the boy.

At some point in 2010 – when the friend was 15 or 16 – Cole indecently attacked him while he slept at a property in Milnathort.

Fiscal depute Lora Apostalova said the victim had been asleep and was incapable of giving or withholding consent.

She said Cole later forced themself on the same person in a “strikingly similar” way.

Some time between September 2013 and

September 2014, Cole sexually assaulted their victim at a house in Kinross.

On a third occasion, between September 2014 and September 2016, at another house in Kinross, Cole committed a sex act while he was sleeping.

Jurors heard from the transgender woman who Cole sexually assaulted in May 2018.

She said she went to Cole’s then home in Princes Street, Perth.

They drank alcohol and watched The Big Bang Theory, she said.

She went to Cole’s bedroom and fell asleep. She woke to find Cole sexually assaulting her.

Cole, of Kirkburn Drive, was handed 200 hours of unpaid work for that sex assault in 2019.

Sheriff David Hall placed Cole on the sex offenders register and deferred sentence for background reports and a risk assessment.

Lucas Cole.