A “touchy-feely” senior social worker has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a colleague at a Perthshire church meeting.
George LeBlanc was placed on the sex offenders’ register after he was convicted of touching a female workmate’s leg during a busy workshop session.
The 63-year-old, who was leader of a specialist childcare team in Perth, had admitted touching his victim under the desk but insisted it was just a practical joke to liven up a boring meeting.
Wanted to punch him in the face
The attack happened in September 2016 at Bankfoot Church Centre, Perth Sheriff Court heard.
LeBlanc’s victim described him as “a good team leader in a sense” but “he was quite jovial and he became touchy-feely and inappropriate.”
The 57-year-old said: “I didn’t dislike him, I just didn’t like what he did.”
She told the court: “We were sat at the table when I felt something brush past my knee.
“I thought: ‘No, no it can’t be’.
“I thought maybe I was being over-sensitive.”
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “I moved my leg away, but then his hand came over to the top of my thigh.
“I just stood right up and I stared at him.
“I just wanted to kick his chair or punch him in the face but I just stood up and left the room.
“He just stared ahead, as if nothing had happened.”
Complaint to HR
The woman later alerted Human Resources.
“The woman from HR was quite abrupt on the phone,” she said.
“She told I just had to nip this in the bud and speak to George face-to-face.”
She later confronted LeBlanc alone, inside a sensory room at his base in Woodlea Cottage, a specialist childcare facility run by Perth and Kinross Council.
“I told him: ‘Do not touch me again’.
“He said to me that he had just misread the signals and said: ‘This is just how I get people to relax’.
‘Cheesy jokes’
LeBlanc retired in 2018.
The following year, the woman was at lunch with her workmates and LeBlanc’s successor.
“We had been talking about cheesy jokes,” she said.
“Then one of them mentioned George and laughed about how he used to touch my leg under the table.
“I just imploded. I was just shocked and felt humiliated.
“It just felt that all this was being thrown back in my face. It was the last straw.”
The woman was signed off sick for eight months and eventually left her job, the court heard.
“My head was just buzzing, I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“I was exhausted.”
Police interview
When questioned by police following his arrest in 2019, LeBlanc admitted he touched the woman’s leg but said it was just a joke. “I was a bit of a joker,” he said.
He told the trial he touched his victim to try and liven up the meeting.
“It was getting near the end of the day, everyone was getting tired,” he said from the witness box.
“I just tried this silly joke.
“I didn’t get the response I thought I was going to get. It fell flat on its face.”
Sheriff Linda Smith found LeBlanc, of Hillend Road, Perth, guilty of sexually assaulting the woman by placing his hand on her leg and moving it towards her inner thigh.
Another charge of a similar assault between February and March 2015, at Woodlea Cottage, was not proven, she said.
Sentence was deferred until September 29 for background reports.
