Edinburgh couple found guilty after being caught engaging in sexual activity in The Meadows
Concerned parents who were in the park with their children called police
A couple have been found guilty after they were caught engaging in sexual activity in front of shocked families in an Edinburgh park.
Michele Doig was spotted straddling Michal Kotecki while parents and young children played nearby in The Meadows last summer.
Kotecki was seen pulling Doig’s top off and touching her bra as the pair drunkenly frolicked at the city centre park on September 6 last year.
Disgusted onlookers who were sitting nearby with children as young as six-years-old witnessed the sexual conduct and reported the matter to the police.
Doig and Kotecki, both from Edinburgh, denied any wrongdoing but were found guilty of committing an act of public indecency following a trial at the city’s sheriff court earlier this year.
Witnesses said they were enjoying a day out with their children when they spotted the couple playing music and rolling around the grass at the popular park at around 2.30pm on a Saturday afternoon.
One man said he saw Doig “sitting on top of the male”. The man said he witnessed Kotecki, a 40-year-old painter and decorator, pulling off Doig’s top and grabbing at her breasts over her bra.
A mother of two young children also saw the amorous couple engaging in indecent sexual conduct and said she could clearly see “the woman on top of the man with her top off”.
She said her friend decided to contact the police and they had waited for officers to arrive to help identify the pair.
Kotecki told the trial he and Doig were just friends and had been drinking vodka in the park and “having a laugh and joking and goofing around” with each other. He denied their conduct was sexual.
Doig, 47, said she was a grandmother and had worked as a social care worker in the past. She told the court she had been drinking alcohol from around 11am that day and had gone to The Meadows to meet Kotecki and enjoy the good weather.
Doig said the couple had been “listening to music on a phone and having a drink” when the police turned up to confront them about their behaviour. She denied that their behaviour was sexual.
Following the evidence the pair were found guilty and they returned to the dock for sentencing on Tuesday where Kotecki’s lawyer James McMacken said “alcohol is a mitigating factor in this case”.
Mr McMacken added: “This was more recklessness rather than deviant behaviour.”
Sheriff John Cook said the public indecency incident had “not met the requirements for [sexual offences] registration” and imposed a community payback order on the pair.
The sheriff sentenced Doig and Kotecki to be supervised by the social work department for the next 12 months. They were both found guilty of committing an offence of public indecency and engaging in sexual activity and removing items of clothing at the Meadows, Edinburgh, on September 6 last year.