Highland Attacker Jailed For Over 2 Years

A man who attacked 3 ex-girlfriends in the Highlands has been jailed for over 2 years.

57 year old Sinclair Ross was jailed for a total of 26 months yesterday for assaulting his 22 year old partner.

It was one of a series of attacks Sinclair Ross carried out on a string of girlfriends in Easter Ross and Inverness between 1999 and 2013.

Sentence had been deferred on Ross for a background report which Sheriff David Sutherland said revealed that the offences were "a product of his upbringing as a child."

Yesterday Ross appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court after admitting three charges of domestic abuse and was told by the judge: "There is no doubt that you were a product of your upbringing but ladies have to be protected from behaviour like this.

"Notwithstanding you do not have a lengthy criminal record, only a custodial sentence is appropriate."

Although he pleaded guilty to three charges, they included an unspecified number of attacks on ex-lovers when he was living in Alness and Inverness.

Fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart told the court at an earlier hearing that the first woman to be assaulted was Andrea Degan, who was in a relationship with Ross between 1995 and May 2005,at two addresses in Alness.

The second victim was Lesley Thomson, Ross’s partner between September 2011 and July 2013, living initially in Inverness, then at Conon Bridge and finally at an address in Dingwall.

The third woman was named as Mea Jenkins, whom Ross had a brief relationship at the end of 2013 when both were living in Inverness.

Ms Degan said the first assault took place in Alness when he complained about her cooking.

Mr Urquhart said: “When she told him to stop complaining and eat up, he pushed her causing her to fall and knock against her child’s high chair which she had to steady to prevent falling.

“She followed him into the kitchen where she asked him what he was playing at. His response was to push her again on the chest, causing her to fall to the floor and then hold a raised fist above her head before lowering it and walking off when she threatened to call the police.”

The second incident after November 2001 involved Ross grabbing Ms Degan by the hair and pulling her about after she suggested he had paid too much attention to another woman.

The final incident involving Ms Degan was in November 2005 in Alness after they had had a child together.

She said that he should spend more time with his family and less with a friend. Ross, who had been drinking, punched her on the back of the head.”

Mr Urquhart said that two of the assaults on Ms Thomson occurred during 2011 in Inverness.

The court was told that after Ross and Ms Thomson moved to Conon Bridge, other assaults occurred, one when he returned home drunk at Christmas 2011 and threw a television remote control which struck her on the eye, leaving her with a black eye for a week and a half.

Other violent episodes included him punching her in the stomach, repeatedly kicked her on the legs, seizing her by the hair, pulling her off a mattress and pulling her along the floor on her bottom.

On other occasions involved him seizing her by her throat, kicking and punching her on the body and striking her with a clothes horse.

Referring to one of Ross’s more recent partners, Mea Jenkins, Mr Urquhart said he had “more than once” punched her on the head.