A boyfriend-from-hell hairdresser has been convicted of a catalogue of horrific domestic abuse against multiple women for the second time in 10 years.
William Hill bombarded ex-girlfriends with menacing calls and texts, held one captive in his flat and mocked another about the death of her stillborn child.
The 44-year-old demanded his girlfriends cease contact with other men and even tried to prevent one from speaking to the joiner who was working on her home.
At his trial, Hill denied any wrongdoing whatsoever, even claiming he was the victim of a controlling girlfriend who he went on to blame entirely for the breakdown of another relationship.
He came up with excuse after excuse for the abusive messages he sent to his former partners, including one stating: “I will kill anyone you’re with, I swear.”
But his act failed to wash with jurors at Perth Sheriff Court who found him guilty of 12 mostly domestically-aggravated charges, spanning from 2017 to 2024 at locations in Dundee, Kirriemuir and Kemnay, Aberdeenshire.
The verdict came 10 years after Hill, under his previous name James Simpson, was jailed for abusing three other women in Dundee, Cupar, Forfar and Airdrie.
His previous convictions were not disclosed to the jury during the four-day trial.
Hill, of Brechin Road, Forfar – a barber in Dundee’s Hilltown – was remanded in custody and will be sentenced later this summer.
‘You lampooned the witnesses’
Sheriff William Wood said: “On seeing your record of previous convictions, I note that you’ve been offending in a domestic way since 2008 and repeatedly served custodial sentences as a result.
“You tried to present yourself as being honest, honourable, reliable and justifiably aggrieved.
“In fact, you’re duplicitous, deceitful, controlling and did nothing but lampoon the witnesses.
“There really is no justification for you to remain at liberty.”
The court heard how Hill banned one girlfriend from contact with other men, including the joiner and plumber who were renovating her home.
“He got worked up about things that didn’t really matter,” the woman told the court.
She said he would be “foaming at the mouth” when he got really angry.
“I just had to change the subject to defuse his anger, which I did a lot,” she said.
Giving evidence at his trial, Hill said the relationship with the woman ended when she received a message from one of his exes.
”I think she was probably talking smack about me,” he said.
After the break-up, Hill bombarded the woman with messages including ones apologising for “mistakes” saying he had “messed up.”
When asked by defence advocate Bert Kerrigan KC what he meant, Hill said his mistake was to allow his ex to get involved in his new relationship and nothing more.
Mocked stillborn child
Hill claimed one of his girlfriends was “manipulative and obsessive,” claiming she had forced him to put a tracking app on his phone so she knew where he was.
In fact, he would try to call and text her constantly whenever she was not in his company.
Around the anniversary of the death of the woman’s stillborn child, Hill told her “her DNA was s***.”
In another message, he commented on her children saying: “One dead…One that hates you and scared of you….Hahaha munter.”
When asked by prosecutor Duncan MacKenzie if he regretted sending this message, Hill said: “No, because it’s a fact.”
After the relationship ended, Hill bombarded her with often menacing and abusive calls, even threatening to “bomb” her new boyfriend’s parents’ home.
The boyfriend told the trial that on July 26 2023, it was “phone call after phone call”.
”There was a lot of aggressive abuse given to my partner and myself,” he said.
He heard Hill call his partner a “fat slag” and a “b****.”
“I was told to get out of the house. He said the house was being watched.
“He was saying things like he was going to steal my works van. He said he was going to bomb my parents’ house.
“To be honest, I hung up because I didn’t want to hear anymore.”
The woman told the court Hill sent her a photo of her partner’s car parked outside her house.
She was so concerned, she asked him to move it and parked away from the property.
”It was just continuous calls and messages,” she said.
”I was completely drained.”
Under cross-examination, the woman denied she had been the controlling one in the relationship.
Female toilets
The court heard how Hill persistently called a previous girlfriend during their relationship in 2017.
He argued with her so much, she became sleep deprived.
She was ordered to cease contact with men and delete her social media posts.
On one occasion, he held the woman prisoner at his then-Dundee home.
He refused to let her leave, blocked her exit and hid the key.
Hill assaulted the woman and chased her into the female toilets of the city’s Deja Vu nightclub and repeatedly banged on cubicle doors.
Hill attacked a fourth woman at an address in Kirriemuir in February 2024, pushing her against a cupboard before seizing her by the throat and compressing her neck.
Jurors found him guilty of three counts of threatening or abusive behaviour, three assaults, a charge of abduction, stalking by engaging in a course of conduct that caused fear or alarm and two charges of engaging in an abusive course of behaviour.
Another name
At his hearing in Dundee Sheriff Court in 2015, Hill – then known as James Simpson – admitted three charges of assault and one of stalking.
Sheriff Alistair Carmichael told him his behaviour towards his partners had been “controlling, violent and abusive.”
The offences against two of the women only came to light after the third complained to police about his behaviour, triggering a probe by Police Scotland’s Domestic Abuse Task Force.
The sheriff jailed the then-34-year-old for a total of three years and four months.
”I note your remorse, your shame and your apologies, and your acknowledgement of your need to address your behaviour towards your partners,” Sheriff Carmichael said.
For more local court content visit our page or join us on Facebook.
