Drunk sexually assaulted woman in historic Edinburgh graveyard

A drunk man sexually assaulted a woman in an Edinburgh cemetery after claiming she had stolen his belongings.

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Cameron O’Donnell, 22, believed the woman had taken property belonging to him and after she allowed him to search her he proceeded to grope her breasts and buttocks.

The shocked victim shouted at him to stop and she subsequently called in the police to report the attack at the capital’s St Cuthbert’s Graveyard on June 2 this year

O'Donnell will return to Edinburgh Sheriff Court to be sentenced.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that O’Donnell and the woman were “not known to each other” but had met while on a night out in the city and had gone into the graveyard to smoke a cigarette.

Pervert sexually assaulted three men in Edinburgh

Prosecutor Ross Price said two of woman’s friends were also present at the time when “the accused abruptly placed his hands underneath the material of [the woman’s] top”.

The fiscal added: “He thereafter touched and cupped her breasts. The accused then ran both his hands down the side of her waist and up her thighs under her skirt and touched her bottom.

Attack scene: St Cuthbert's Graveyard

“[The woman] demanded he stop and he done so and he was chastised for his actions.”

The police were then contacted around midnight on June 3 this year and O’Donnell, of Elsrickle, South Lanarkshire, was later arrested and charged with sexual assault within the cemetery.

Solicitor Paul Smith, defending, said his client “had struck up a conversation” with the woman and her friends and had gone into the cemetery to smoke a cigarette.

Mr Smith said O’Donnell was “heavily under the influence of alcohol” and had “become paranoid” and started to accuse the women of stealing his property.

He added: “The complainer then said she would demonstrate that was not the case and stood with her arms out vertically and allowed him to search her.

“That was the context the first physical contact took place, but he accepts he went beyond any reasonable attempt to search her.”

Sheriff John Cook placed O’Donnell on the Sex Offenders’ Register for a term still to be determined and deferred full sentence to next month for the preparation of background reports.

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