Three women have told of their shock at seeing a “scruffy” pervert standing in a busy street with his penis hanging out of his trousers.
One of the woman took a photograph of Dennis McGurk exposing himself before walking over to him and ordering him: ‘Put that away. This is a sexual offence.’
The 37-year-old female told a court that McGurk replied: “What, my phone?” but did not cover himself up.
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Another embarrassed witness, a 30-year-old nail technician, said: “When I first looked over his zip was undone and it was just lying out. He realised that we were all staring at him.
“I was shaking my head. He was just moving it around, touching it.”
McGurk, 62, from Bathgate, West Lothian, denied exposing his genitals to the women in a sexual manner during the Valentine’s Day incident in Bathgate's Hopetoun Street on 14 February 2020.
He claimed to police that he must have forgotten to zip up his trousers after going to the toilet before leaving the nearby Ballencrieff pub to make a phone call.
However, finding McGurk guilty after a short trial at Livingston Sheriff Court on Tuesday, Sheriff John MacRitchie told him: “It’s absolutely incredible that for a matter of several minutes you have no idea your penis is hanging out of your trousers in a public street.
“The fact that you didn’t know is fanciful nonsense. There is absolutely no doubt that the offence was committed and I find you guilty as libelled.”
Giving evidence, one of the witnesses – a 32-year-old female business owner – said she was made aware of McGurk’s behaviour at lunchtime, just before the local schools came out.
She said: “It was a comment from (someone) saying: ‘Oh my god, a man’s got his penis out!’ so I looked out the window.
“I saw a gentleman standing in the walkway next to the bin with his zip down, his penis out, and he was staring over.
“What made me uncomfortable was the staring and the length of the staring, almost five minutes, on and off, almost like he was trying to grab my attention.”
She said another woman in the shop felt the need to tell the man to “put it away” and left the shop to speak to him.
She went on: “In terms of the man’s penis it was not hard, it was soft. I didn’t see him handle it, I just saw him with it out of his unzipped pants.
“The gentleman remained for probably five minutes or so then disappeared. At no point did I see him cover himself.”
She added that the accused, who she identified in court, was “not well put together and described him as “scruffy or unkempt”.
The woman who challenged McGurk said that after her initial surprise at what she was seeing, she immediately went into ‘This-is-not-OK’ mode.
She went on: “I took a picture of him because this was a serious offence. I took a second picture as he turned side on.
“It was a Friday afternoon, a very busy location. The schools had closed and there was going to be children around.
“I crossed the road and asked him to put his penis away. I just remember looking straight at his face.
“I said: ‘Put that away. This is a sexual offence.’ He replied: ‘What?’
“I said: ‘Put it away!’ I was quite firm in how I was speaking.
“He said ‘What, my mobile, or my phone?’ and I said ‘No’.
“When I stated I thought it was a sexual offence I made it very clear I wasn’t talking about a mobile phone.”
She said the encounter made her feel a range of emotions: from anxious and angry to sad.
Summing up the evidence of the three women – who can't be named for legal reasons – depute fiscal Roshni Joshi said any issue of the accused’s ignorance of committing an offence was displaced at the point where he was confronted about his conduct.
She said: “It’s the accused’s position that he left the public house to make a phone call, take a phone call or send a text message, but there is clear evidence a mobile phone is not in his possession when the witnesses first observe his exposed penis.”
James Walker, defending, said his client had told police: “The only time my penis was out was in the toilet.”
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He added: “Mr McGurk was and is still unaware that anything was exposed.
"His only concession is he must have forgotten to zip up his trousers.
"Anything that was seen by the witnesses he was not to know.”
Sheriff MacRitchie deferred sentence until 27 June for background reports and told McGurk that his name would not be added to the sex offenders’ register at this stage.
