Police chief caught having sex in car gets off with fine (original) (raw)

A police chief superintendent who was caught engaging in sexual activity with his lover in his car has been fined £750 but escaped being put on the sex offenders’ register.

Gareth Blair, 49, was spotted with Claire Makel, wife of the former Hearts and Livingston footballer Lee Makel, in a car park in Edinburgh last year.

Two men saw them naked from the waist up in the back seat of a Land Rover Discovery Sport. The witnesses said the couple were “engaging in sexual activity” when the vehicle began to rock. The two men began to “whoop and sound their horns” before one of them starting filming on his mobile phone and the incident was reported to police.

At Edinburgh sheriff court yesterday Blair, who retired from Police Scotland this year, pleaded guilty to committing a breach of the peace by engaging in sexual activity in his car while in a state of partial undress.

Sheriff Adrian Cottam told Blair he had committed “a wholly inappropriate, inexplicable and reprehensible” act and fined him £750. After deliberating for 15 minutes, the sheriff decided not to put Blair on the sex offenders register as “the sexual act did not contain any sexual deviance”.

The sheriff described Blair’s offending as “criminal” and “morally and legally reprehensible”. Ms Makel did not attend court, but her plea of not guilty was accepted by the Crown.

Lorraine Almond, for the prosecution, told the court the couple were spotted at Hermiston park and ride at about 5.20pm on April 16 last year. The two men saw Blair, from Edinburgh, in the back seat with Ms Makel “straddling him”.

Ms Almond added that Blair was seen to hang a piece of clothing over the window of the vehicle and “the activity was continuing”. She said that the woman was seen leaving the Land Rover at about 7pm, getting into a BMW that was parked in the next bay and driving off. Blair left soon after.

Callum Anderson, in mitigation, said that Blair had found the court appearance and media attention “humiliating and difficult” and that he had suffered “severe consequences” for his actions. The publicity had affected his attempts to get employment since retiring, Mr Anderson said. The offer of a job as a money laundering inspector had been withdrawn.

Blair, a father of one who has been married twice, was head of Scotland’s elite crime squad at Gartcosh Crime Campus in Lanarkshire and also served on secondment in Northern Ireland.