Edinburgh stables boss who sexually assaulted women at livery yards is spared jail sentence

Campbell Taylor carried out the sex attacks on the women and made vile sexual comments to a fourth victim about her breasts at livery yards he owned in Edinburgh.

Taylor, 49, assaulted the women by unclipping their bras, pulling their trousers down to expose their underwear and striking one victim on the backside with a horse whip. The stables boss also sexually assaulted a woman on two occasions during shopping trips to a Tesco in Galashiels and at the capital’s Hermiston Gait retail park.

Taylor denied the sex attacks claiming the incidents took place amid a culture of “practical jokes” and “horseplay” among staff and visitors at the farms he owned and worked at.

But a sheriff failed to believe the business owner’s lies and found him guilty of seven sexual offences carried out between 2009 and 2019 following a trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

Taylor and his partner Louise Drysdale, 30, were acquitted of a charge of neglecting children they were looking after by leaving them alone in a car and allowing them to roam around a livery yard while horses were loose. He was also cleared of an allegation of animal cruelty by herding horses with his car and to striking the animals with an unknown implement on occasions between 2016 and 2022.

Taylor is currently listed as a company director with horse share firms Pentland Ponies and Castlemains Farm in East Lothian where members of the public are offered the opportunity to “own a horse without all the commitment and expense”.

Campbell Taylor, 49, pictured outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court. | Alexander Lawrie

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Taylor, from Balerno, Edinburgh, returned to the city centre court for sentencing yesterday, Friday, May 9, where he was told he must pay the four victims a total of £1000 in compensation. He was also placed on the sex offenders register for 12 months and sentenced to supervision and an unpaid work order of 200 hours. The court also imposed three year non-harassment orders in respect of two of the victims.

Sheriff Christopher Dickson said: “There were a number of offences you were convicted of, which were serious offences. I accept what has been said by your solicitor and in all the circumstances I am going to make a community payback order instead of sending you to prison.”

Defence agent Dan Cameron told the court his client was deemed “a low risk of re-offending” in the social work report and asked the sheriff to spare him custody. Mr Cameron said: “He now appreciates the conduct he was convicted of was not appropriate.”

In his closing speech, fiscal depute Corrie Laouadie told the court Taylor had carried out “a systematic” course of abuse and had held “some position of power over each of these women”.

Mr Laouadie said: “The accused has repeatedly, both advertently and discreetly, invaded their personal sexual autonomy without their consent. This is conduct carried out over a long period.”

Taylor was found guilty of seven charges of indecent assault, sexual assault and directing sexual communication at Midkinleith and Rosebank Farms, Currie, Edinburgh, all between January 2009 and September 2019.