Police officer abused four women after being celebrated as a hero

On the night he was celebrated as a hero, a police officer sexually assaulted four women.

David Jones groped his victims while dancing to the music of an Abba tribute band at the Scottish First Aid awards ceremony at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Glasgow on March 31, 2023.

The women were a firefighter, a swimming instructor, her sister and a paramedic in training.

The married 36-year-old police officer – based in Auchterarder in Perthshire – and three colleagues had previously been awarded for so-called “heroic acts of bravery”.

They had to deal with a mentally ill man armed with a knife who had injured himself while responding to reports of a gas leak in Edinburgh.

Vital first aid was administered and the area was evacuated before reinforcements arrived.

Jones and his colleagues received the Chairperson’s Award for their efforts.

However, after a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, he was found guilty.

Sheriff Andrew McIntyre said: “The incidents were related in nature, circumstances and timing of the commission of the offence you systematically pursued.”

“The witnesses told the truth in their description of your behavior.

“I reject the accusation that they lied or were mistaken.

“I have hardly seen more credible witnesses and found them convincing, compelling and they confirmed each other.”

Jones was found not guilty in three other cases of sexual assault against a political science student, a laboratory assistant and an emergency medical technician.

During the trial, the revelers could be heard celebrating to an Abba tribute act and a DJ after the awards ceremony.

Jones attacked the women while drunk on the dance floor.

One of the victims, a 23-year-old paramedic student, told the court: “There was a man who happened to have won a prize that night and he kept trying to dance with me.

“I shrugged it off, but he kept following me as if he was thirsting for my attention.

“At first he rubbed against me, which made me feel uncomfortable.”

The woman claimed that Jones then followed her, grabbed her hand and spun her around.

She said: “First he tried to touch my breast over my clothes.”

The witness further said that Jones put his hand under her dress.

Prosecutor Abbas Ali asked her how she felt about it.

The woman replied, “Dirty.” She told the court that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The 30-year-old firefighter said she was on the dance floor with colleagues at the party.

“I felt a distinct jolt on my back and then someone grabbed my butt,” she said.

The woman described it as “groping” and “squeezing.”

The 23-year-old swimming instructor reported an “unpleasant interaction” with a stranger who grabbed her breast.

She said: “I told him to get away from me.” The man “lingered” near her group – before then grabbing her sister.

The sister said she was “grabbed even more violently,” which left her “uncomfortable and intimidated.”

The witness said: “I was disappointed that someone would do something like that at an event where we were there as volunteers for a charity to have fun.”

A security guard testified in court that he ejected the “drunk” Jones from the hall after he was observed invading other people’s privacy.

Jones stated in his statement that he “possibly” came into physical contact with the women on the dance floor.

He told his lawyer Christopher Shaw that he would have stopped dancing with them if they had refused.

Jones insisted that he “didn’t know why” he was kicked out of the party at the end of the night.

He acknowledged that he may have apologized to one of the women, but that the women were “mistaken in thinking it was something it wasn’t.”

Jones has been placed on the sex offenders’ register. He will be sentenced next month and has been released on bail in the meantime.

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