Sheriff gives predatory scoutmaster heavy fine instead of 'soft' jail term

Justice: Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said a fine would have worse consequences at McDonald's stage of life.

A sheriff has ordered an elderly scoutmaster who preyed on teenage boys in his care to pay a huge fine and compensation because it will hit him harder than a prison sentence.

David McDonald, 78, was ordered to pay the £32,000 fine within 12 months, along with £16,000 compensation for his victims.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis opted for a fine because McDonald would only serve 25 per cent of any prison sentence behind bars before being given a home detention curfew, meaning he could potentially be out of jail within months.

"In my view," he said, "imposing a financial penalty, in all the circumstances, will have greater consequences upon you, compared to the imposition of custody, in as far as the rest of your days are concerned."

He told McDonald to sell his assets, which include a house and a car, to ensure he paid off the fine within a year.

McDonald, who lives on pensions from Dundee City Council and the state, had offered to pay at £60 a week, which would have taken 44 years in total.

'Emotional baggage'

Perth Sheriff Court heard McDonald abused three boys who were in their teens while he was a scoutmaster in Coupar Angus, Perthshire, in the 1960s and 1970s.

He told the victims he was giving them special training for their First Aid badges and was showing them "pressure points" when he sexually assaulted them.

Police began investigating more than 30 years later when one of the victims, who are all now in their 50s, broke down in front of his wife told her about McDonald's crimes.

Sheriff Foulis said the victims had been left with significant "emotional baggage" as a result of carrying what McDonald had done to them secretly for over four decades.

McDonald, a senior scout for several decades, was still on the executive committee when police began investigating his reign of abuse.

Though he admitted charges of sexually assaulting boys in his care, McDonald claimed to have "little recollection" of the incidents.

Abuse of trust

Sheriff Foulis said: "In my view there is no question that at the time of these offences you knew what you were doing was a crime. These offences were serious.

"They involved the abuse of three teenage boys entrusted to your care as a scoutmaster, no doubt because their parents thought it was good for them to learn skills and experience camaraderie by being in a uniformed organisation."

McDonald handed the court a cheque for £11,000 and two for £2,500 each as compensation for his victims, which he said had been raised from selling shares.

McDonald, of Abbey Road, Coupar Angus, Perthshire, admitted sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in the back of his estate car while camping in 1968.

He admitted carrying out the same serious sexual abuse on another boy in his car outside the Scout hut in Coupar Angus during the following year.

He also admitted that on various occasions in 1970 and 1971, in Tullybaccart, Newtonmore and Coupar Angus, he repeatedly sexually abused a third member of the scout troop.

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