A 43-YEAR-OLD ex-cop will be sentenced in November for assaulting a boy aged seven and a 16-year-old girl in Dunfermline.

Barry Murphy, 43, formerly of Dunfermline, but now living at an address in Elgin according to court papers, was due to be sentenced but had tested positive for COVID.

He had gone on trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court previously.

He was found guilty of a charge that between January 1, 2014, and January 1, 2018, in Dunfermline, he assaulted a boy, who was aged seven at the start of that period, by seizing him by the hair, dragging him out of a room, throwing him to the ground and threw toys which hit him on the head and, on another occasion, he kicked the boy on the body.

He had admitted that on February 24, 2019, also in Dunfermline, he assaulted a girl then aged 16, by seizing her hair, dragging her into the house, seized hold of her face, compressed it, then grabbed her by the hair again, dragged her into a car and seized her repeatedly by the hair.

Sentencing will now take place on November 2.

Murphy, a former police sergeant in Edinburgh, lost his job after being found guilty of assaulting his wife after a trial at the same court in 2019.