Police officer handcuffed teenage girls and made them walk through manure in their socks

A police officer who forced two 15-year-old girls to walk shoeless through manure after being handcuffed and driven to a farmyard has avoided jail after ­quitting the force. Robert Ovenstone, 32, took teenagers from a care home to a nearby farm after a callout over ­disruptive behavior. There, he forced the girls to walk in darkness down a manure-covered farm track in their socks.

Ovenstone and his co-accused, 31-year-old Stuart Kelman, admitted behaving in a threatening manner during the incident in Invergordon, Easter Ross, in July 2011. Kevin McCallum, defending Ovenstone, told Tain Sheriff Court that Ovenstone had quit his job, adding: “He has already paid a heavy price for a bad decision with good intentions.

“The intention was to teach the young people a lesson and encourage them to mend their ways.” Sheriff Jamie Gilchrist QC dismissed the claim that Ovenstone was carrying out “old-fashioned policing”. The sheriff told ­Ovenstone that he should never have become a policeman in the first place. He said: “You hark back to some apparent golden age where it is claimed matters were dealt with by a clip round the ear.

“You abused the position of power you were in and I take a very serious view of what you did.” Ovenstone also admitted a charge of threatening a young boy at the same care home on the same night. Sentencing him to 240 hours of community service, the sheriff added: “There is little to gain by sending you to prison.” Kelman, who had told Ovenstone “That’s enough” when the girls were ordered to walk down the farm track, was fined £1500. He is still suspended by the police.