Highland police officer accused of abducting teenage girls
A police officer has been accused of abducting two teenage girls and taking them to a farm where they were made to stand without shoes in animal manure.
Robert Ovenstone, 30, of Northern Constabulary, Inverness, was alleged to have handcuffed the 15-year-olds.
He and another Northern Constabulary officer, Stuart Kelman, 29, were also alleged to have threatened the girls.
The case called at Tain Sheriff Court on Monday and was continued without plea until 21 May.
Mr Ovenstone has also been accused of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner and threatening to strike a 13-year-old boy with a baton at a children's home in Invergordon, Easter Ross, on 19 July last year.
He faces a further charge alleging he abducted two 15-year-old girls from the home and handcuffed them.
It was alleged that while in their stocking soles, the girls were removed from a police vehicle and made to enter a barn at Balintraid Farm, Delny, and stand in manure.
They were also made to walk down a farm track in their stocking soles, it was claimed.
Mr Ovenstone and Mr Kelman, who did not appear in court on Monday, have both been accused of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner and telling the girls of someone previously losing three teeth against a wall of the barn.
It was alleged the girls were told they would suffer the same fate if they did not behave themselves.
Northern Constabulary said two officers were suspended from duty pending the outcome of court proceedings.