Man jailed for knifepoint attack on monitoring officer
A criminal who carried out a knifepoint sex attack on a woman who went to his house to fit him with an electronic tag has been jailed for four and a half years.
Patrick Nolan, 39, preyed on the woman at his home in the Western Isles on Sunday, May 25, 2025.
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The G4S employee had gone to Nolan’s address after the monitoring tag he had been wearing as part of a restriction of liberty order (RLO) malfunctioned.
As the woman was about to leave, Nolan, who had been drinking, retrieved a long-bladed knife from the kitchen and demanded, “Take your clothes off.”
When she resisted, he grabbed at her clothing and, during the struggle, left her with a minor laceration to her hand.
After physically resisting him, the woman talked Nolan down by speaking calmly to him.
A court heard how she told him he “didn’t have to do this” before eventually fleeing to safety and alerting her bosses and the police.
Nolan pleaded guilty to the sexual assault last month at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Sentencing Nolan at the same court on Monday, Judge Lady Ross told him the woman had been carrying out her duties as a field monitoring officer when he attacked her.
Lady Ross told the offender, who appeared from prison via videolink: “You assaulted her with the intention of raping her. Fortunately, the complainer took control of the situation.”
Nolan was handed an extended sentence of four and a half years in jail and two years on licence once released back into the community.
The court had previously heard how the woman called her supervisor following the attack, but became so distressed she struggled to breathe.
When she contacted Police Scotland, she was described as being “clearly in a state of distress and close to tears.”
Lady Ross said, “As a result of your actions, this person experienced real distress. That is not surprising. It is only thanks to her professionalism, quick thinking, and resilience that the situation was not worse.”
The judge said the woman had been carrying out an important and often difficult duty as part of the criminal justice system and deserved to be treated with respect.
“Your assault, especially a sexual assault, particularly against a person in the course of her employment, is a very serious matter,” she added.
Lady Ross told Nolan that with more than 30 previous convictions, including theft and road traffic offences, he presented a risk of harm to the public, and that an extended sentence was necessary.
He was also placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely and was banned from contacting his victim.
Defence solicitor advocate Shahid Latif told the court his client wished to express his remorse, regret, and apologies to the woman.
The lawyer added, “He has told me in terms that no one should have had to go through what happened that day.”
Mr Latif said the conviction was “a crossroads in his life” for Nolan and that he has indicated he will engage with any programmes available to him in prison.
