St Andrews Uni rifle club coach found guilty of sexually assaulting female students

A coach at a University of St Andrews shooting club has been found guilty of sexually assaulting female students.

52-year-old Patrick Jess volunteered to be the president of St Andrews Rifle Club. A court ruled he sexually assaulted four women, and has put him on the sex offenders register.

The students believed Jess was an employee of the the University of St Andrews, and said he didn’t correct them. He ran errands for the students, such as helping them with university work and looking after their pets.

Jess inappropriately touched one woman several times between September 2019 and March 2023. On one occasion, he inappropriately touched her while fixing her shooting jacket.

He sexually assaulted another woman on multiple occasions between 2022 and 2023. He touched her breasts.

The sheriff said he spent more time going over his notes from the trial than for any other case in 14 years.

The University of St Andrews has now stopped him from volunteering as a coach for the shooting club.

Jess told the court: “I have got a way in which I interact with people – if I share an interest with somebody, I share it really intensely. If somebody asks me to help them about something I just keep going. I would go into hours and days and weeks in an attempt to fix things.

“I have a very, very dark – fairly extreme – sense of humour. I have also tended to use double entendre.”

Jess told students he was a “historical researcher”. He said: “I said I was a historical researcher. I never pretended to be a member of staff. I wanted people to believe I was normal and had a normal job. I let people believe something that wasn’t true.

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“I didn’t tell my friends and family I was unemployed and a house husband. What I wanted to do was teach people. I felt like a failure.”

Patrick Jess will be sentenced in May.

A previous version of this article made reference to allegations of indecent communication, but these were removed from the charges.

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Featured image of the University of St Andrews by Grayswoodsurrey via Creative Commons.