A man abducted young women on first dates at his Perthshire home and an Edinburgh hotel after meeting them online. Ross Hunter hid one victim’s shoes in a cupboard and snapped the front door handle at his house in Scone during an episode in which he repeatedly pushed her to the floor. Around four months earlier he abducted and assaulted the other woman at a Premier Inn hotel room in the capital.
He had assaulted and followed two more women in Edinburgh city centre during a night out just three days earlier. The 26-year-old, who had an online networking business for people seeking employment in the media sector, appeared for sentencing at this week after a jury previously found him guilty of six charges. Sheriff Krista Johnston told Hunter: “You are entirely responsible for abusing, frightening, assaulting – and in two cases abducting – four different women, all of them strangers to you.
“You behaved in a sinister and in my view, clearly predatory fashion towards them. “The harm caused was significant and will affect these young women’s lives and futures.” Hunter, of Croydon, South London, was previously convicted of abducting and assaulting a woman at his then-home in Pinedale Terrace, , on March 27 2022.
The trial heard that the woman, who is not from Scotland, had gone to Hunter’s house for a date after meeting him on an online dating app and believing they were meeting at a café due to the name Scone. She wanted to leave and made up an excuse but he sto.