A mother in Scotland ripped the lenient sentence handed down to a transgender woman who sexually assaulted her 10-year-old daughter in a supermarket restroom, the Courier reported. The mother — who isn't being named in order to protect her child's identity — was furious that 18-year-old Katie Dolatowski is serving the sentence in the community with "tagging orders" rather than in jail at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, the paper said.
"I don't have any confidence whatsoever that he will not go out and do something equally as bad or worse," the mother told the Courier.
What happened?
When the victim emerged from a restroom stall on March 4 of last year, Dolatowski grabbed the girl by the face, shoved her back into the stall, and ordered her to remove her pants, the paper said.
Dolatowski also told the girl a man was outside who would kill her mother, the Courier added. But the girl punched Dolatowski in the face, stomach, and groin and ran to her father and siblings waiting outside the restroom, the paper said.
A month prior to the incident, Dolatowski filmed a 12-year-old girl on a toilet in another supermarket by holding a cellphone over the stall divider, the Courier added. Dolatowski admitted to both crimes, the paper said, but Sheriff James Williamson gave Dolatowski what he said was a "stringent" community-based sentence while being banned from contact with children.
Dolatowski was considered a "moderate risk" of reoffending, the Courier reported, but Williamson apparently wasn't keen on jail time. "I have come to the conclusion that the public will be better protected by the imposition of a stringent community payback order," he said.
A court heard that Dolatowski had been in the social care system since the age of 3 and had mental health issues, the paper said.
What else did the victim's mother say? The 10-year-old victim's mother told the Courier that her daughter was hysterical after the attack and has had flashbacks about it: "This is something that will remain with her for the rest of her life."
"He was stalking the toilets," the mother added to the paper. "He went there specifically to attack a child. We were so, so lucky that nothing worse happened. It was only her reaction that stopped that. It could have been a 5-year-old child that wouldn't have been able to fight back."
As for Dolatowski's troubled background, the mother told the Courier that "a lot of people have been in care, but they do not go out and assault children. I don't care that he has issues or what his background is: He is a pedophile, and he has been let out on a supervision order."
She added to the paper that she feels "very, very let down."
