An Angus policeman has been cleared of grabbing a fellow officer’s private parts in a local nightclub at the end of a drunken bobbies’ night out.
CCTV footage shown to Forfar sheriff court captured Rod Hamilton’s right arm moving between Michael Woodburn’s legs in the 1am incident, but the bravery-award winning accused flatly denied grabbing his genitals after banter between the duo and a judge ruled there was room for doubt over whether contact was made.
After viewing the nightclub tape from DeVito’s in Arbroath, Sheriff Kevin Veal said it was clear to him that the February 2016 incident arose out of “too much alcohol being consumed by too many people.”
Hamilton, 45, whose address was given as c/o Police HQ in West Bell Street, Dundee, had denied assaulting Mr Woodburn in Millgate by seizing his genitals and pushing him on February 5 last year.
Mr Woodburn was also charged in connection with the events of that night and his case is still to be dealt with.
Giving evidence, Hamilton, a policeman for ten years currently based in Arbroath, said the night out had begun with a meal before the group went on to various pubs and “a reasonable amount” was drunk.
He told the court that he had been a member of the Army reserves and Mr Woodburn used to serve in the RAF Regiment, and during the night there had been some “joking” about a Walter Mitty facebook page, where people who pretend to be soldiers or servicemen appear.
“At some point he had said ‘I’m going to put you on the Walter Mitty facebook page’; he had said it in jest, just to poke fun,” Hamilton told the trial.
“I was sitting down, Michael Woodburn came over to me, did a little dance and this is the point that he said to me he was going to put me on the facebook page and was laughing.
“I said you don’t have the balls for that, I got up off the chair and made a motion to make him feel that I was going to do something, but I didn’t.
“I was a bit unsteady on my feet…we were larking about.”
When asked in cross-examination by depute fiscal Robbie Brown what comic effect Hamilton hoped to achieve by putting his hand towards Mr Woodburn’s genitals, Hamilton said: “I just did, I can’t explain it, it was two guys, just nonsense at the bar.”
Acquitting Hamilton, Sheriff Veal said it had not been proven whether the accused’s hands made contact with the genitals of Mr Woodburn.
“This was an incident that arose out of a combination of too much alcohol being consumed by too many people on a police night out,” said the sheriff.
