{"id":634356,"date":"2026-06-12T05:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634356\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T05:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:59:12","slug":"bulgarian-man-guilty-of-assaulting-12-year-old-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634356\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgarian man guilty of assaulting 12-year-old girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bulgarian man has been found guilty of assaulting a 12-year-old girl during an incident in Dundee last year.<\/p>\n

Ilia Belov, 22, was also convicted of behaving in a \u201cthreatening or abusive manner\u201d towards four girls, all of whom were aged between 12 and 14.<\/p>\n

Belov\u2019s sister, Nadjedzha Belova, earlier pleaded guilty to one charge of assaulting a 13-year-old girl in the incident, which happened in the Lochee area of the city in August 2025.<\/p>\n

During a two-day trial, Dundee Sheriff Court heard the 12-year-old had been walking with a group of girls on their way to a bus stop when Belov made sexual remarks to her.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence by video-link, the girl, who is now 13, recalled: \u201cHe kept saying, \u2018come here sexy. I will show you how to have a good time\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said his words made her feel \u201cdead angry\u201d, and she turned around and began shouting at him.<\/p>\n

Belov then phoned his sister, who arrived shortly afterwards and began attacking a 13-year-old member of the group.<\/p>\n

In the ensuing fracas, Belov pushed the 12-year-old, who told the court she hit her head on a metal handrail as she fell to the ground.<\/p>\n

After standing back up, she pulled out an axe and a knife, which she said had been hidden in her waistband for five to 10 minutes before the incident.<\/p>\n

She said after revealing the weapons she was \u201cbasically sat holding them\u201d, saying she \u201cknew\u201d the man would \u201ctry to go for (the other girl)\u201d.<\/p>\n

When the police arrived minutes later, the girl said she had dumped the weapons on a nearby roundabout, where they were later recovered by officers.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence during the trial with the assistance of a Bulgarian interpreter, Belov claimed he had pushed the girl in order to protect his sister after seeing she had a knife hidden under her T-shirt.<\/p>\n

He also denied having made sexualised remarks to the girls, telling the court they had been saying derogatory things to him, including calling him a \u201cf***** migrant\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith rejected Belov\u2019s version of events, describing it as \u201cneither credible nor reliable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a number of reasons, I find your evidence to be wholly unconvincing and self-serving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is, as was suggested by the prosecution, a revisionist or excuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a curious set of circumstances that, having been alerted to (a girl) in possession of a knife\u2026 having pushed the person in possession of the knife to the ground, you turn your back upon her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not for me to speculate, but common sense would suggest that if someone had a knife you would pay particular attention to the individual with (it), for fear that they attack you with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the girl\u2019s evidence was supported by that of two other members of the group, and by CCTV footage of the incident that was shown to the court.<\/p>\n

He told Belov: \u201cI am entirely satisfied by proof beyond reasonable doubt that the trigger for all of this were the comments that you made.<\/p>\n

\u201cI accept that as a result of the comments you made abuse was directed at you, which included swear words, including you being called a \u2018f creep and an immigrant\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe words of the children were eloquent to describe your behaviour given your age and their respective ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on: \u201cHaving made the sexual remarks to the children you then, enraged by the fact that they became angry and started shouting abuse at you, followed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said rather than leave the area or call the police, he instead called his sister, who \u201cimmediately on arrival engaged in attacking one of the females\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also told Belov he rejected his claim that he had seen a knife under the girl\u2019s T-shirt before pushing her.<\/p>\n

The sheriff said: \u201cI am entirely satisfied\u2026 taking (the girls\u2019 evidence) together with the video footage, that you assaulted (the girl).\u201d<\/p>\n

Belov, who appeared in court dressed in black trousers and a white puffer jacket, showed no reaction as the verdicts were handed down.<\/p>\n

The pair are due to be sentenced on August 5.<\/p>\n

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\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bulgarian man has been found guilty of assaulting a 12-year-old girl during an incident in Dundee last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-634356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}