Inverness DJ sentenced for sexual assault on teenager at city bar Hootananny
A DJ who sexually assaulted a teenager at an Inverness pub has been placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years.
Daniel Tierney (45) of Abbey Court, Inverness, had denied sexually assaulting the girl by touching her bottom on the evening of March 30 last year.
The girl, who cannot be named for the legal reasons, told Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood at Inverness Sheriff Court that, after she entered Hootananny's in Church Street, Inverness, she was going up the stairs to the Glow Bar venue when Tierney put his arm around her shoulder and grabbed her behind.
She rejected suggestions by defence agent Patrick O'Dea that she was unsteady on her feet and Tierney had simply put his hand on to her lower back to prevent her from falling down the stairs.
A 20-year-old woman who was with the girl said she heard shouting behind her and saw Tierney with her hand on her friend's bottom.
She said her friend said "don't touch me" and Tierney was laughing.
She said they had been drinking but were not "overly drunk".
Tierney, an unemployed warehouseman, said he filled in sometimes as a DJ between acts at the venue.
He said he was standing at the door when the group of girls arrived and he held the door open for them as they entered.
The girl, he said, was on the first step and stumbled back and he stretched out to stop her from falling.
"She accused me of touching her on the bottom," he said.
Asked by his solicitor if he grabbed her on her buttocks he replied: "No, she's fabricated it. She went up the stair, stumbled back. I'm still holding the door," he said, adding he may have made contact with her lower back.
Procurator fiscal Roderick Urquhart, in cross-examination, accused Tierney of having a sense of entitlement about "coming on" to young girls.
"You put your arm around her and she made it quite clear she could make her way upstairs herself," he said. "You then grabbed her bottom. You sexually assaulted her."
Sheriff Fleetwood placed Tierney, a first offender, on the Sex Offenders' Register and fined him £450.
