Pity, not hate for Tory jailed for eight years over abuse

A MOTHER whose children were abused by a former Scottish Conservative candidate said she felt pity rather than hate for him as he began an eight-year jail sentence.

John Smart, a lay preacher, was found guilty of sexually abusing three children over 15 years at the High Court in Perth in December. Yesterday he was sentenced to eight years.

The court heard he began abusing one boy when he was three years old. He also attempted to rape an 11-year-old girl.

After his sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow, the victims’ mother said: “My husband and I went to the sentencing today. The sentence was as we thought it might be, so it didn’t come as a surprise. We are all just glad it’s over and that justice has been served.

“As strange as most people will think it, I cannot find it in me to hate John. I hate what he has done and I am glad he is being punished for what he has done, but I pity him.

“I hope he gets all the help and support he needs while serving his time and that it will help him to be able to own up to what he has done.”

Smart, 48, from Edinburgh, met his victims through the Edinburgh City Mission, where he was a preacher.

Sentencing him, judge Lady Dorian said the offences involved a “significant degree of grooming”. She ordered Smart to serve the eight years behind bars and an extended sentence that will see him supervised for three years once he is released.

She said: “The offences were planned, intrusive and involved a significant degree of grooming.

“Your victims were vulnerable and it was as they came to rely on you as a friend and for support that you committed these offences against them.”

She said an extended sentence was necessary for the protection of the public as Smart posed a “sufficiently significant risk”.

Smart began abusing the three-year-old in April 1987 and continued to do so over a ten-year period, at addresses in Edinburgh and at swimming pools around the country.

He was convicted of “unnatural carnal connection” with one child. The former train conductor sexually abused a second boy on one occasion between August 1987 and 1989 when the child was aged between five and seven, and the girl on various occasions over five years from April 1997, when she was eight.

Lady Dorian also placed him on the sex offenders register.

Solicitor Advocate John Keenan, defending, said his client continued to deny responsibility for the offences.

He said: “Notwithstanding the fact that Mr Smart denies responsibility, he acknowledges that these are extremely serious offences and understands he will inevitably receive a significant custodial sentence.”

Smart stood as a Scottish Conservative candidate for Holyrood in 2003.