RAF reservist '˜looked up colleague's skirt' at Oktoberfest

AN RAF police reservist is facing disgrace - after he was caught looking up a woman's skirt at a military party.

Keith McIlraith was photographed sneaking a look up a fellow police reservist's dress at an Oktoberfest party night at the No 603 Squadron headquarters in Edinburgh.

Former Royal Navy submariner Keith McIlraith was photographed looking up a fellow police reservist’s dress at an Oktoberfest party night at the No 603 Squadron headquarters in Edinburgh.

McIlraith - who is also a TV extra - and the woman had been enjoying the “rowdy, drunken affair” along with around 50 other military personnel following a training day at the RAF HQ.

The woman was dressed as a “German beer wench” and after spotting a friend in the same outfit she asked for a picture of them to be taken.

Nothing was said at the time but the woman admitted she was left “shocked and embarrassed” when she saw the picture of her and her friend with McIlraith on the floor looking up her short dress a few days later.

The ex-Navy submariner, 43, denied he had looked up the woman’s skirt claiming instead he and a female friend had been larking about on the floor of the function suite during the party on October 25, 2014.

But McIlraith - who has appeared as a support actor in River City, Dear Green Place and Bargain Hunt - was found guilty of a breach of the peace by looking up the woman’s skirt at the RAF HQ, Learmonth Terrace, Edinburgh, following a trial at the capital’s sheriff court today.

The 48-year-old victim told the court she attended the RAF training day in the afternoon before changing into a “traditional Oktoberfest German wench” fancy dress outfit consisting of white off the shoulder top, short black skirt and black boots.

She said: “People were drinking quite a lot - it was a party type atmosphere.

“It was a good evening and the majority of it was spent in the bar before we went through to a bigger room for party games.

“I saw a friend wearing the same outfit and wanted a picture taken of us as I thought it would be quite funny. I looked at the picture a couple of days later and I was shocked.

“I didn’t know he was on the floor looking up my skirt - I was shocked and embarrassed.

“If I’d known about it In would have dealt with it then and there.

If I’d [known what he was doing] I would have stamped on his face.”

The woman then said she confronted McIlraith about the image a few weeks later but that he had ‘just laughed it off’ and said ‘it was a bit of a laugh’.

“There was no apology and he felt as if he didn’t do anything wrong.”

The woman then reported the matter to the Provost Marshall, the head of the RAF police, before going on to inform the civilian police around nine months after the incident.

The woman said she made a statement to the police as she felt the RAF command “were not taking it [the complaint] seriously enough”.

Giving evidence, McIlraith, from East Kilbride, told the court he had drunk around a dozen bottles of beer and as a result had “no recollection” of the picture being taken.

He said he had been engaging in “tomfoolery” with a female colleague whereby both of them were rolling around the floor on several occasions that evening.

He denied the allegation he had looked up the woman’s skirt claiming that would have been “obscene”.

He added: “I know at no point did I look up anyone’s skirt. I wasn’t paralytic but I was drunk.

“It [the picture] might look like that but I wasn’t looking up her skirt.”

Following the evidence, Sheriff Fiona Tait told McIlraith she was rejecting his version of events as “unsatisfactory” but found the woman’s evidence to be “credible and reliable”.

Sheriff Tait found the former Royal Navy submariner guilty of the breach of the Pearce charge but did not place McIlraith on the Sex Offenders Register following yesterday’s trial.

The sheriff said she will consider that sanction as part of the fuller sentence which was deferred to next month.