Optician's abuse conviction quashed

A former dispensing optician jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing two girls has had his conviction overturned.

Boo Seng Khoo had his conviction quashed by a panel of three judges at the High Court of Justiciary after they ruled there had been a miscarriage of justice, clearing Seng Khoo of any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors had alleged that Seng Khoo, who was also a foster parent, had preyed on the young girls in his home over a period spanning eight years from 2003 to 2011.

A report in the Greenock Telegraph claimed the sheriff that presided over the trial said he had ‘not expected such an outcome’ in the case. Sheriff Alan McKenzie said that he had been ‘anticipating a verdict of acquittal’ from the evidence placed before the jury. He added that the testimony of one girl, saying she had been abused almost daily for seven years in a living room with other adults and children coming and going, ‘might have seemed extraordinary.’