Sexual assault widower misjudged the friendship (From The Northern Echo)

Sexual assault widower misjudged the friendship

8:00am Saturday 18th February 2012 in Redcar News By Neil Hunter

A WIDOWER who sexually assaulted a woman after they both got drunk at his home has walked free from court after a judge said he simply “misread the situation”.

Stuart Macaulay, 57, was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a sixmonth night-time curfew when he appeared at Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

Judge Peter Bowers described the sentence as “an extraordinary course” and told Macaulay his previous good character had saved him from an immediate jail term.

The judge said: “You have been out of trouble throughout the whole of your life and you are an otherwise perfectly decent, honest and upright person.

“It is quite clear what happened took place under your roof, and you clearly misread the situation. This case probably has all the uncertainty of cloudiness of drink. This case demonstrates the risks people take engaging in sexual activity with people who are heavily drunk because there is a time when a person is, through drink, not unconscious but is incapable of giving their free consent to what takes place, and the law is such that that amounts to rape or indecent assault.

“It has been my misfortune, over the past couple of months, to deal with a few of these cases, and they seem to be more common.

“If there had been any suggestion in this case that there had been a date-rape drug or something which you had done which encouraged the lack of consciousness of the victim, then I think the outcome would be much different.”

Macaulay, of Marine Parade, Saltburn, east Cleveland, was found guilty of sexual assault after a trial last month. He claimed the contact was with the woman’s consent.

The court heard how the victim’s vague memory of being touched was probably from before she passed out, but she was unsure exactly what had happened.

Macaulay admitted to police and during his trial that he did more than the woman could remember, and his lawyer, Robert Mochrie, described it as a “difficult case”.

He said the clothing salesman had struggled to come to terms with the death of his partner of 20 years, and said a prison sentence would affect him badly.

Mr Mochrie told Judge Bowers: “He accepts that this was a serious misjudgement. He knows, ultimately, that this should not have happened. I would submit that Mr Macaulay is a decent man who strayed from the proper path momentarily.”