A Bulgarian man has been found guilty of assaulting a 12-year-old girl during an incident in Dundee last year.
Ilia Belov, 22, was also convicted of behaving in a “threatening or abusive manner” towards four girls, all of whom were aged between 12 and 14. Belov’s 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.
During a trial at Dundee Sheriff Court, Belov claimed he had pushed the girl in order to protect his sister after seeing she had a knife hidden under her T-shirt. However, Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith rejected his evidence, describing it as “wholly unconvincing and self-serving”.
The pair are due to be sentenced on August 5. Belov said he had been with his father on his way to buy cigarettes when he passed a group of young girls walking in the other direction.
Speaking with the assistance of a Bulgarian interpreter, the father-of-two said as they approached, one of the girls uttered “disrespectful” remarks to him.
“They are coming and start making some cheeky remarks,” he said. “They told me ‘son of a bastard’ and also ‘f****** migrant’.”
He said that after they passed each other on the street, the girls continued to “shout” remarks at him, so he turned round and went after them, leaving his father to continue to the shop.
“I went back to ask why they are disrespecting me,” he told the court. “They have started to panic, saying I am following them.”
Asked why he had not just walked away, he said: “Because I am human. I deserve to ask them why I deserve so much disrespect. I didn’t do anything to them.”
He said more girls then turned up, at which point he said he phoned his sister as he was “worried”, and when she arrived a physical altercation broke out between her and one of the girls. He said that during this, he saw another of the girls had a knife tucked under her T-shirt, and pushed her over in order to protect his sister.
Belov told the court that after she got back up, the girl brandished the knife and axe she had concealed beneath her clothing, telling the court this was the first time he saw her holding them. Cross-examining the witness, prosecutor Michael Robertson put it to him that as a grown man he had been the “adult” in the situation, and he could just have walked away or phoned the police.
Belov accepted this, but when asked whether staying in the area had been “wrong” he said he was “not sure”.
A 13-year-old girl earlier admitted pulling an axe and a knife from her waistband during the confrontation.
She told the trial that she produced the weapons after sexual remarks were made towards her by a man.
After giving her evidence via video-link from the city's Justice Hub, the schoolgirl was given a lecture about the carrying of knives by Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith.
He told her: “I say this entirely independent of the outcome of this trial.
“You have candidly explained that you had an axe and a knife, two weapons. There is no such thing in the law as a defensive weapon. There are only offensive weapons and it is my experience, over three decades in criminal law, that it is those young people who carry weapons such as an axe and a knife, who have recourse to use them in heated situations, often to lethal effect.
“You carry a weapon, and get into a barney, and you might stab and kill someone and spend a large proportion of the rest of your life in prison. Often it is people who produce a weapon who are overcome and the lethal weapon is then used on them and used to kill you.
“I hope you would reflect that it is not a good idea to carry weapons in the city of Dundee.”
