Thurso man guilty of raping child as part of sexual offending over 43 years

A 71-year-old Caithness man subjected five young victims to serious sexual abuse including the rape of a child in a campaign of depravity which spanned 43 years.

James Pollard, of Shore Street, Thurso, was convicted by a jury after two days of deliberation at the High Court in Inverness following his seven-day trial.

Pollard was found guilty of a total of nine offences committed at various locations across the north of Scotland, including Inverness and Caithness, between May 1979 and April 2022.

The jury returned majority verdicts on all but one of the charges which was a unanimous verdict of assaulting a young girl by striking her on the body in Inverness on October 8, 2021. He was found guilty of raping the same girl.

Pollard was also found guilty of two charges of using lewd and libidinous practices on a girl under the age of 16 between May 1979 and May 1992 – an offence now known as indecent or sexual assault – and three charges of indecent assault.

They included one on a teenage girl while she was asleep and sexually assaulting another.

The final offence was sexually communicating with his fifth victim over a period of years, beginning when she was just 14.

Pollard was remanded in custody by Lord Summers pending sentence at Aberdeen High Court on October 10. He was also placed immediately on the Sex Offender’s Register.