Drunk dad fined £500 for abusing transgender woman in Leith street

A drunken dad who shouted abuse at a transgender woman has been ordered to pay his victim compensation.

The woman was approached on Great Junction Street. Picture: Greg Macvean

Graham Spiers was part of a group of males who shouted obscenities at the woman as she and a friend walked past a pub in Bonnington. Father-of-two Spiers screamed at the woman as she made her way along the Capital’s Great Junction Street, Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard.

Spiers, 45, from Leith, and his friends were also said to been “pointing and laughing” at the woman, who was left distressed by the unprovoked verbal assault on her.

Sheriff Robert Fife told Spiers there is “no place in today’s society” for the way he behaved and ordered him to pay the woman £500 in compensation as well as fining him £500.

Fiscal depute Rosie Cook said the woman and a friend were subjected to the abuse as they passed a pub in the Leith area at around 8.10pm on July 23, 2017.

Solicitor Jennifer Cameron, defending, said her client had carried out “a very unpleasant incident” and that “a number of individuals were involved in this”.

Ms Cameron added that Spiers been drinking alcohol.