8:36 am, May 19, 2014
AN Aberdeen car dealer has been put on the sex offenders’ register after sending a string of unwelcome and explicit text messages.
Fifty-seven-year-old John Bruce, who was said to have been drunk when he committed the offence, sent the messages when he was at his dealership Bruce Motors, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.
Bruce appeared in court to be sentenced recently. He had previously admitted intentionally and repeatedly sending sexually explicit text messages to a woman, and failing to stop when asked to do so, according to the Aberdeen Evening Express newspaper.
His name was added to the sex offenders’ register and will stay there for three years.
The offence was committed between April 15, 2012 and November 2 the same year. He was in a ‘drunken state’ at the time of the offence, the court was told.
Defending, Mike Monro said Bruce had claimed the texts had originally been sent in error. He added that Bruce ‘had been burying his head in the sand’ over what had happened.
The Evening Express reported that Mr Monro told the court: ‘Initially the texting went to the wrong recipient – that was an accident. It was an accidental offence to begin with, then it became deliberate.’
Bruce, whose address was given as Culter House Road, Milltimber, was made the subject of a three-year community payback order with a supervision requirement.
And because he has ‘issues with alcohol,’ he will have to attend alcohol counselling as well as a programme for sex offenders.
Bruce was also fined £200 for failing to meet a deadline for notifying the police of his details last month.
