Man facing jail time for sex attack on Glasgow pensioner

A violent sex attacker is facing jail for assaulting a pensioner in her Glasgow home.

Glasgow Sheriff Court
Published 2nd Mar 2017

A violent sex attacker is facing jail for assaulting a pensioner in her Glasgow home.

Stephen McCaig, 43, launched himself at the 70-year-old after she invited him in to her house when he saw her at the door to her flats.

He tugged at her trousers to try and get them off, at her Craigend home, and tried to pull her legs apart.

McCaig then launched a terrifying violent attack on the woman who “pretended to be dead” so he would stop hitting her although eventually managed to escape to a neighbour.

When the police arrived McCaig had his underpants at his ankles and was screaming abuse.

The woman has since moved to sheltered housing as a result of her ordeal at the hands of McCaig.

After a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, McCaig from Paisley Road West, was convicted of sexual assault on October 5, 2015.

McCaig pled guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner when police took him to hospital and spitting on a police officer when he was there.

He accepted the violent attack although claimed he had no recollection of the incident.

McCaig said: “I’m no brain of Britain but the facts speak for themselves.

“I know I went in to her house that morning, the police took me out.

“The objective data suggests it was me.”

But he denied that there was any sexual attack on the woman.

McCaig told the court the neighbour he attacked “helped him” when he moved to the area around two years before the attack.

In evidence he said “She furnished half my house, she really helped me out.”

He claimed: “I’m absolutely horrified and ashamed at what’s happened.”

But jurors heard McCaig and his dog Charlie saw the female as she returned home from a night out and he went to her house.

He accepted her invitation to go in for a drink and claims that after he started drinking a vodka she poured, cannot remember anything.

Initially she didn’t remember him touching her inappropriately that but accepted in evidence she later told the police “Stephen was pulling at my trousers and I was holding them at the front trying to keep them on.”

He then attacked her, pulled her hair and repeatedly punched the elderly woman on the face.

She suffered a suspected broken nose as well as bruising and swelling to her face and bruising on her inner thighs.

She told the jury she “pretended to be dead” in the hope McCaig would stop reigning blows on her.

The court heard she fell asleep and when she woke she saw McCaig’s legs over hers and in distress, ran to a neighbour for help who contacted the police.

PC Elaine Lawrie was one of the officers who saw McCaig that morning.

She told the court: “His trousers and pants were at ankle level.”

The officer told how McCaig was shouting and swearing and verbally abusive towards police telling them “f*** off pigs”.

He kicked off when officers took him to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and London Road police office and spat at PC Ross Honeyman.

Sheriff Paul Crozier deferred sentence for reports and remanded McCaig in custody.

He was put on the sex offenders’ register and will learn at his sentencing how long that will be for.