Former police officer jailed for sex abuse

Targeted women in their 20s

A former police officer has been jailed for carrying out a string of sex attacks.

Charles Pirie – who starred in Bafta-winning BBC series The Gamekeeper – was found guilty of sexually abusing five women over a six-year period while running an outdoor pursuits and security stewarding firm.

The 65- year- old exploited vulnerable women who worked for him, and told them he would sack them if they did not perform sex acts on him.

PerthSheriff Court heard the father- of- four employed 200 people, and targeted predominantly women in their 20s.

Onevictim said Pirie persuaded her to travel to Fort William on a work trip within days of starting. She was concerned when they arrived at a hotel to find he had only booked one room and called her parents but she was 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.

She reported him when she got home. Police were called and a probe found a string of victims going back several years. Pirie, of Ballinluig, Perthshire, was found guilty of six of the seven charges he faced after trial. Yesterday, he was branded a significant danger to lone women, and put on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Sheriff William Wood jailed him for two years, and said he would be on licence for a year after his release. The sheriff said: “This was a course of conduct over a five-year period. There was abuse of power and exploitation of your relationship to the women.

“You exploited your role, knowledge and experience as a special constable. You were willing to use force.”

Pirie worked as a special constable for Tayside Police for several years, and was the focus of The Gamekeeper, which was filmed on Atholl Estates, Blair Atholl, during the 1990s.