Hunting with dogs - Hunting Act 2004

Former gamekeeper jailed for child sex abuse

A FORMER Dalmeny Estate gamekeeper who indecently assaulted three children over a decade has been jailed and placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

Donald Peter Bennie Smith, 57, who worked at the South Queensferry estate in the 1970s, indecently touched the teenagers between 1978 and 1989. He enticed one boy to his gamekeeper’s house on the Dalmeny Estate when he was aged 13 to 15 by asking him to walk his dog, work in the garden and help with pheasant shooting. The victim’s 65-year-old mother said today: “I hope he rots in hell.”

She said her son refused to talk about the abuse, which took place between 1978 and 1980, until he heard his own children had bumped into Smith one day. He decided then he had to go to the police. Smith moved to Beechwood Road, Blackburn in West Lothian where he abused two more children.

He pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent behaviour and was jailed for four years and nine months.