A former SNP marketing campaign supervisor and famend drag queen has been cleared of snapping voyeur pictures of his half-naked pal as he lay unconscious.
Nathan Sparling, 31, was on trial accused of taking photos of the person whereas his penis was uncovered following a boozy ingesting session.
Sparling, who was an aide to ex-SNP depute chief Angus Robertson, was accused of utilizing the sufferer’s telephone to take a number of photos at his Edinburgh flat.
However a not confirmed verdict was returned by Sheriff John Prepare dinner on Monday after a two-day trial on the metropolis’s sheriff court docket.
Delivering the decision, Sheriff Prepare dinner stated he’d concluded Sparling took the pictures and described his actions as “clearly reprehensible”.
The sheriff added Sparling may have “no cheap perception” that the sufferer gave his consent.
He stated the photographs confirmed the person in an “unconscious, susceptible and bare state”.
Sheriff Prepare dinner referred to the crime generally often called “upskirting” the place a digital camera is used to take pictures of a sufferer’s genitals which in any other case wouldn’t be “seen”.
He stated: “That's not the situation right here.”
The sheriff stated he wasn’t persuaded past an inexpensive doubt that Sparling was “liable for the elimination of clothes” and located the cost not confirmed.
Sparling was charged with taking a photograph of the sufferer’s penis at his flat within the metropolis’s Leith space on June 22 2019 with the intention of enabling “your self or one other particular person” to view it.
Sparling was chief govt of charity HIV Scotland on the time of the alleged offence.
He was the previous marketing campaign supervisor for structure secretary Angus Robertson who was then the SNP’s Westminster chief.
The trial beforehand heard how Sparling and the person, who can’t be recognized for authorized causes, had been on a night-out earlier than returning to the accused's flat.
Giving proof, the person informed the court docket he’d awoken the following morning to seek out himself undressed from the waist down. He stated his pants had been rolled down and his genitals have been uncovered.
The person stated there had been seven or eight pictures and he had deleted them.
The court docket heard he later reported the matter to police.
On Monday, defence agent Neil Stewart informed the trial that Sparling and the person had a “jokey relationship” which included “risqué feedback being made”.
Mr Stewart stated if Sparling took the pictures then it was a “joke, albeit a really juvenile joke carried out in very poor style”.
The solicitor stated it was meant to be “humorous” and a “joke about how drunk” the pair have been with “no malice” concerned.
Requested exterior court docket for a touch upon being cleared, Sparling didn't reply.
In 2014 the Report informed how Sparling was ditching politics to pursue his profession as a 7ft-tall drag queen.
We described how he spent hours every evening reworking into his alter-ego Nancy Clench as he toured Scotland for comedy gigs.
At the moment, he gave up his then job as an assistant at SNP MSP Aileen Campbell’s Carluke workplace to take his act to London.
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