East Lothian OAP back behind bars for dangerous driving in electric wheelchair on busy road in the dark

A convicted child sex offender is back behind bars - after he was caught erratically driving an electric wheelchair along a busy main road.

Robert Cockburn, 78, was spotted riding his electric wheelchair in the dark without any lights or reflective materials on the coastal road between Port Seton and Aberlady in East Lothian.

Cockburn was said to have driven the power chair at “grossly insufficient speeds” while swerving across the carriageway into the path of oncoming vehicles.

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Motorists were forced to take evasive action to avoid colliding with the pensioner as he repeatedly attempted to re-enter the roadway during the dangerous incident on Monday this week.

The police were alerted to the situation and Cockburn, from Port Seton, East Lothian, was arrested and charged. Electric wheelchairs can typically travel at speeds between four and eight miles per hour.

The OAP spent the night in the cells and appeared from custody at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday where he pleaded guilty to a charge of culpably and recklessly operating the electric wheelchair in the hours of darkness.

Sheriff Francis Gill remanded Cockburn in custody and deferred sentence for social work reports to next month.

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Robert Cockburn, 78, was spotted riding his electric wheelchair in the dark without any lights or reflective materials on the coastal road between Port Seton and Aberlady in East Lothian, on Monday, May 19.placeholder image
Robert Cockburn, 78, was spotted riding his electric wheelchair in the dark without any lights or reflective materials on the coastal road between Port Seton and Aberlady in East Lothian, on Monday, May 19. | Alexander Lawrie

Cockburn first hit the headlines in 2017 when he refused to use his mobility scooter on the pavement and regularly held traffic up by trundling along the B1348 road between Port Seton and nearby Longniddry.

The retired bus inspector defied angry motorists by claiming he was not breaking any law and that the police were powerless to stop him travelling on the busy road.

In 2023 Cockburn was jailed for 212 days when he admitted to a series of sexual offences - including exposing himself to children - carried out over a 14 month period. The pensioner flashed his genitals to women at a supermarket and asked adult men for sexual favours when he repeatedly attended at a public toilet in Musselburgh, East Lothian.

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The pervert also exposed his genitals to two schoolboys aged 12 and 14 and asked them to perform a sex act in him at the same public convenience. He was handed an ASBO banning him from entering any public toilet building in East Lothian, but after his release from prison last year he soon began breaching the order.

Cockburn was seen within the public convenience near his home in Port Seton where he would sit on the toilet in a state of undress with the door open so members of the public could see him. A second incident at the same location soon after saw the repeat offender smear faeces on the walls of the toilets.

He also deliberately watched men while they urinated at toilets at the capital’s Waverley train station and exposed himself to women at a dental clinic in Prestonpans, East Lothian.

Sentence had been deferred on several occasions for the possibility of Cockburn being re-located to a care home but the court was told no facility was prepared to accept him as a resident. He was eventually caged for eight months and placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years in September last year.

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