
Fife councillor found guilty of sex offences involving teenage girl
According to the indictment the offences involved sexual activity with a girl aged between 13 and 15.
The offences took place between February 11 and August 21 2023, and were committed at a variety of locations in the Fife and Edinburgh areas.
The 43-year-old was found guilty by a majority of one charge under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009.
He is due to be be sentenced on August 19.
Commenting after Graham's conviction, Fife Council leader David Ross said the revelations at the trial had been 'truly shocking'.
The Labour councillor went on: 'This is appalling behaviour by anyone, let alone an elected councillor – and the sentence will reflect the seriousness of this case. Our sympathies go out to the young person involved.
'It is impossible to express how badly David Graham has let down his colleagues and the people he was elected to represent.'
A Labour Party spokesperson said: 'The party is taking immediate action to exclude David Graham from membership of the Labour Party following his conviction.'
Police Scotland Detective Inspector Graham Watson said: 'Graham is a manipulative individual who groomed and sexually abused his teenage victim.
'He was well-known and in a position of power when the offending took place.
'I would like to thank the female for her assistance in bringing him to justice.
'We remain committed to investigating all reports of sexual crime and would encourage anyone affected to report it.
'Every report is taken seriously and will be fully investigated, no matter how much time has passed, with support from our specially trained officers and partner agencies.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
33 minutes ago
- BBC News
Pro-Palestinian protestors disrupt John Swinney Fringe event
Pro-Palestinian protesters have disrupted an Edinburgh Fringe Festival event featuring First Minister John was being interviewed by comedian Susan Morrison when the event was disrupted five times by six different groups of protestersThey held up signs spelling the word "genocide" and shouted at the first minister, according to the Press protestors called for an end to funding arms companies through the Scottish government's economic agency Scottish Enterprise. Police officers attended the event as tensions rose between the protesters and other members of the first minister's security team is reported to have aided in retaining people from berating Swinney on the posted on the social media site X shows the first minister sitting quietly while the confrontation takes place.


Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Labour's love affair with business has descended into a messy divorce
Labour's first year in office was like the debut of a bad movie franchise. A long, hot summer of uncertainty followed by a 'shoot 'em up' Budget tax raid. Now despite poor reviews for the original, the producers seem determined to unleash a sequel. We learned this week that, ahead of an autumn Budget, business confidence in the UK is the lowest since records began, confirmed by the Institute of Directors. What started as Labour's love story in opposition has become near all-out war on business in government. The battle between the subtleties of what it takes to foster enterprises and the deployed prejudices of Labour student union politicians, is not a fair fight: taxes, borrowing and regulatory burdens on business are all going the wrong way. Business confidence may be just another number in the long parade of economic indicators heading in the wrong direction but, unlike others, it is forward-looking. It is business confidence that decides if there will be a job available for those collecting their degrees in the next few weeks. And it is business confidence that will be signing – or not signing – that order for winter stock or the Christmas advertising spend next week. What we need is a government that makes it easier, not harder, for businesses to operate – that is the prerequisite for growth in the UK. Conservatives at least understand this, even if too many actions in government deviated from the authentically Conservative beliefs Kemi Badenoch has recently reasserted. For the many senior Conservatives with deep business experience, this is intuitive. Instead, Labour has done everything in its power from the outset to do the exact opposite. The manifesto-breaking National Insurance jobs tax, for example, is laser-focused on raising unemployment while costing £25bn a year. Or take the family business death tax. Family businesses employ nearly 16 million people in the UK. They are now being de-incentivised to line the Treasury coffers, driving up their costs and making them less competitive than foreign competitors or even private equity-owned businesses which don't face the same odious tax. Many of these long-standing family businesses with deep community roots face having to let go the very people to whom they've previously given opportunities. Completing the hat-trick of economic horrors is the 300-page job-killing employment bill – which does the exact opposite of what it says on the tin. Set to bite later this year, this £5bn-a-year burden sets loose the unions who bankroll the Labour Party and buries bosses in red tape. Primed to unleash waves of strikes and crush anyone who dares to grow here in the UK, it will turn employing staff from a minor headache to a raging migraine. Of late, Labour have been trying to gaslight us into believing that everything is fine. Clinging selectively to any cherry-picked data outlier to assert a parallel universe to the one the Institute of Directors or CBI reports. The Chancellor celebrates a minuscule 0.1pc rise in GDP like a Lionesses' win one day while ignoring the cacophony of warnings from those on the frontline such as UKHospitality or the British Retail Consortium. This approach treats businesses like fools, and it never works. To create confidence you need consistency, and business rumbled some time ago that this Government is anything but consistent. They see what I see, and what Telegraph readers see: an underqualified Chancellor completely out of her depth who is more interested in feeding the public spending furnaces than taking tough decisions for the British economy. In possibly the largest brain-drain in history, many of those who can are voting with their feet and leaving for more hospitable countries. Last summer was already a write off after Rachel Reeves spent it trash-talking our own economy and having the longest run in to a Budget for decades. What will this years sequel look like? We can only guess. Perhaps 'A Nightmare on Downing Street' could be its working title? As a responsible Opposition, we want the Government to do what is in the national interest. If Reeves wants to stop the rot, she should pursue radical cuts in spending to shrink taxes and the welfare state. We, like many, would support this. Unfortunately, we know not to hold our breath. Socialists will do what they have always done – continue to smash businesses with higher taxes, higher energy costs and more trade union-sponsored red tape. The result of all this is that confidence will be subdued and decisions put on hold, followed by another painful Budget with the Chancellor pulling the only lever she knows how: higher taxes. We've seen this socialist movie before. Only the names have been changed. The title of this sequel to the first dreadful attempt of a year ago? Less Mission: Impossible, more Mission: Impoverish.


Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Brian Cox is spellbinding in James Graham's most definitive drama yet
Make It Happen, an eye-catching curtain-raiser to the 2025 Edinburgh International Festival theatre programme, is the latest opus from our foremost political playwright, James Graham. It also brings Succession star and Dundee-born acting titan, Brian Cox, back to the Scottish stage for the first time in a decade. While the play is a triumph, its sobering focus – the tenure of Fred Goodwin as CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland – will offer little fillip to Edinburghian pride. Established in the city in 1727, RBS was one of the world's biggest banks to founder in the 2008 financial crash, bailed out by Gordon Brown's government to the tune of £45bn. Far from seeming parochial or passé, this play feels like a belated, vital invitation for us all to reflect on the debacle, which saw Goodwin stripped of his knighthood. 'Fred the Shred' – as the reputedly ruthless executive was nicknamed – is played by Sandy Grierson, while Cox incarnates the 'ghost of fiscal past': the 18th-century Scottish economist – and here, Goodwin's hero – Adam Smith. Over two hours, weaving fact and fiction, the production charts the course of RBS's rise and fall, from Goodwin's arrival there in 1998 to the bail-out emergency, with Cox providing a more satirical element as a fitfully appearing Smith. As such, the play examines the recklessness and inept regulation of the New Labour era, as well as – via Smith – the legacy of the Enlightenment. Graham has done it again – turned complex history into theatrical gold. And this may be his most essential work yet, because it identifies the source of the political upheaval that preoccupies his work (whether in This House, on the stage, or Brexit: The Uncivil War, on TV). Gordon Brown's regime – when boom turned to bust – may have battered the nation, but it put new force behind Graham's career. Brown is just one of the high-profile figures to emerge amid the finely co-ordinated ensemble, along with Alistair Darling, banker and baroness Shriti Vadera, and Laura Kuenssberg. Ideally, we'd see more of what went awry in the heart of government. But it's the nondescript, shadowy figure of Grierson's Goodwin who dominates the evening, empire-building in Edinburgh and determined to make corporate conquest after conquest. ('Make it Happen' was the company's adopted slogan, and it's frequently issued as a command to quivering staff.) Goodwin isn't represented as a panto villain. With director Andrew Panton harnessing up-tempo, apposite pop hits from the period, the play stresses the aspirational energy Goodwin strove to unleash, chiming with the can-do spirit of Scottish devolution (1998). But Grierson brings self-contained menace to the role besides an unnerving resemblance to Vladimir Putin. There's the odd light touch of Carry On – bonking sessions in an office cupboard – but the dominant reference is Greek tragedy, the chorus stalking, Fury-like, a figure who becomes almost mythic in his hubris. There's a quality of madness, then, to the apparition of Cox's economic grandee. The actor initially – gamely – plays himself, reluctantly recruited for a pop-up corporate entertainment. Later, the bewigged sage appears, as if surreally summoned by Goodwin's modern-day Faust, indulging in campy asides and marvelling at the 21 st century. But he increasingly becomes a figure of conscience-pricking disapproval, dismayed that Goodwin hasn't fully digested his writings. The moral of Graham's story? Substance always trumps style, and if you're at the apex of power, you need to do your homework. Rachel Reeves: take note.