Aberdeen photographer Simon Scott convicted of sex attacks on young women to be sentenced

A photographer convicted of a string of sexual assaults is to be sentenced at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.

Simon ‘Sid’ Scott, 44, was found guilty of targeting five young women during photoshoots in Glasgow and Aberdeen between 2014 and 2017.

He had stood accused of a catalogue of sexual assault and indecent behaviour charges involving 12 women aged between 16 and 20.

Scott’s lawyer previously claimed his client was the victim of a “witch-hunt”.

At a previous court hearing in August, fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar had urged jurors to convict Scott, describing him as a “manipulative”, “opportunistic” and “predatory” sex offender.

A jury of nine women and six men took just under six hours to find the professional photographer guilty by majority of five charges.

Not proven verdicts were returned to the remaining seven charges.

A lengthy police investigation into Scott’s crimes involved officers sifting through thousands of his photographs – 150,000 of which were found to contain eroticism or nudity.

Sheriff Morag McLaughlin made Scott subject to the sex offenders register and deferred sentence until September 1 in order for a criminal justice social work report and a restriction of liberty order assessment to be carried out.

Scott was found guilty of the following charges:

Sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman during a Christmas Eve photo-shoot at City Dance Moves, Aberdeen, in 2015
Sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman between 2015 to 2016, at the Jurys Inn Hotel in Aberdeen.
Sexually assaulting a 19-year-old girl during a photo-shoot in a bedroom at the CitizenM hotel, in Glasgow’s Renfrew Street, in December 2015
Sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman in her Aberdeen home in April 2016
Sexually assaulting a 17-year-old schoolgirl at Glasgow’s CitizenM Hotel in February 2017.