Scottish police officer abused women at an awards ceremony where he was honored for “heroic bravery”

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

David Jones groped his shocked 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 “heroic acts of bravery” when they had to deal with a mentally ill man armed with a knife – who had also injured himself – while responding to reports of a gas leak in Edinburgh.

Vital first aid was administered and the area was evacuated from the danger zone before reinforcements arrived. Jones and his colleagues received the event’s Chairperson’s Award for their efforts.

But his six-and-a-half-year career is facing ruin after he was found guilty in a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court. He was also found not guilty of three other counts of sexual assault against a politics student, a laboratory assistant and an emergency medical technician.

Sheriff Andrew McIntyre said: “The incidents were related in the nature, circumstances and timing of the conduct you systematically engaged in. The witnesses have told the truth in their description of your conduct.”

“I deny that they lied or were mistaken. I have hardly seen more credible witnesses and found them convincing, compelling and they confirmed each other.”

It was reported in the trial that after the awards ceremony, revelers celebrated to an ABBA tribute act and a DJ. A drunken Jones struck on the dance floor.

The 23-year-old paramedical student told the court: “That evening, a man happened to have won a prize and kept wanting to dance with me. I ignored him, but he followed me as if he was craving my attention.

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

The woman claimed Jones then followed her, grabbed her hand and then spun her around. She said: “First he tried to grab my breast over my clothing.”

The witness said Jones put his hand under her dress. Prosecutor Abbas Ali asked her how she felt about that.

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 her colleagues. The woman recalled: “I felt a clear push on my back and then someone grabbed my butt.”

The woman described it as “groping” and “squeezing.” The 23-year-old swimming instructor, meanwhile, reported an “uncomfortable 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 groping her sister. The sister said she was “grabbed even more violently”, which left her “uncomfortable and intimidated”.

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

The 21-year-old politics student claimed a man slapped her on the bottom on the dance floor. Mr Ali asked the witness how she felt and she replied: “I was quite taken aback. I was frustrated and upset.”

The 32-year-old paramedic claimed she was dancing with friends when a man put his arm around her shoulder and then moved to her waist. She said she recognized him from when he accepted an award that night.

This woman added: “Then his hand moved further up my hip to what was then my butt.”

The 29-year-old lab assistant claimed her alleged attacker was “quite predatory” on the dance floor. She said: “He came at me and tried to grab me by the waist, but I pushed my hands away and told him to go away.”

Security guard Evan Alexander, 28, testified in court that he ejected the “drunk” Jones after he was observed invading other people’s privacy. Jones said in his testimony that he “may have” come 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 thrown out of the party at the end of the night.

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