Abduction charge Ross cops appear in court

TWO Ross-shire police officers accused of abducting two teenage girls and making them stand in animal manure have maintained their not guilty pleas at Tain Sheriff Court today (Monday).

But defence solicitor Iain Innes, representing PCs Stuart Kelman and Robert Ovenstone, told Sheriff Richard McFarlane there were hopes that the case could be resolved.

“We had hoped to resolve this case today but we are close to resolution,” said Mr Innes. “We need a notional diet because we hope matters will be resolved by that date.”

October 19 was fixed as the date for the notional diet.

Kelman (29) and Ovenstone (31) deny abducting the girls on July 19 last year and taking them to a barn at Balintraid Farm, Delny, near Invergordon. It is alleged the girls were compelled to stand in animal manure and made to walk down a farm track, shoeless.

Both officers have also been charged with behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear and alarm to the girls, both aged 15, when they were handcuffed.

It is alleged the officers told the girls they had previously taken a person to the barn and that person had lost three teeth against a wall.

The charge also alleges that they todl the girls if they did not behave they would suffer the same fate, and they threatened the girls that they would have to walk home in darkness in their stocking soles.

In a further allegation, on the same date, Ovenstone is charged with behaving in a threatening manner towards a 13-year-old boy, threatening to strike him with his police baton and presenting the baton at him.