“A danger to children” but Fife paedo has jailed term slashed

A Fife paedophile, who infiltrated a family before grooming their children and subjecting them to sexual abuse, has had his jail term slashed from five years to just three years.

David Glass, a businessman and landlord from Anstruther, was jailed for five years in January after a jury found him guilty of sex abuse in the 80s and 90s. It was the second time he had been convicted of child sex offences.

The sheriff branded 59-year-old Glass a “danger to children” in January.

However, appeal court judges have now cut that jail sentence to just three years after his lawyers argued it was “excessive”.

Over the course of almost two years in the late 1980s, Glass subjected two of his victims to repeated sex abuse at his caravan in the East Neuk of Fife. The abuse only stopped when one of the boys died in the spring of 1989.

Then in the mid-90s Glass attacked another boy, aged between nine and 11 at the time.

It was the second time Glass had been found guilty of child sex abuse charges.

Appeal judges ruled the sheriff had not taken into account the “cumulative impact” of Glass’ earlier three years and ten month sentence for similar crimes.

Glass was found guilty of five charges of abuse between August 1987 and August 1996 at Dundee Sheriff Court.

In January, Sheriff Tom Hughes jailed Glass for five years and made him subject to one year’s extended licence upon his release.

Glass was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for life.

The sheriff said, “You groomed them, purchased them gifts and won their confidence and carefully manipulated them into a situation where you could carry out this criminal conduct.

“Conduct no child should ever have to endure.

“You take no responsibility whatsoever and you blame others for the position you find yourself in. Based on the evidence before me there is no merit in your denials.”

The sheriff went on, “In my view you are a danger to children. You must be told in clear terms that your offending has had a catastrophic effect on your victims in this case. You are responsible for all of that.”

In September 2014, Glass was convicted at Dunfermline Sheriff Court of a string of child sex offences committed in the same area over an eight-year period from 2004 to 2012.

He was released from that sentence in early 2016.