Carronshore chip shop boss accused of sexual offences against teenage girls

Francesco Falcone referred to a sausage pizza as a "sex pizza", Falkirk Sheriff Court was told.A schoolgirl, 15 to 16 at the time, said Falcone, 46, had smacked her bottom and put his hands on her waist or the side of her thigh. She said he "would make a joke and use it as a handle to ask personal questions".She said she had been near where the food was wrapped when Falcone asked her if she'd had sex with her boyfriend, and "if I liked any specific positions". She added Falcone would direct sexual innuendo at young girls at the chippy, Falcone's Fish Bar in Carronshore.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, she said that she'd felt "really awkward and uncomfortable" when he asked her about sex with her boyfriend, saying: "It went way past a joke. He had a sausage pizza and he was calling it a sex pizza and he was holding it at his hips."

She later reported her allegations to a support teacher at her high school, who told her to "write it down". This was then forwarded to police.

The girl told prosecutor Catherine Fraser: "I really felt I should do something about it rather than just leave it."Falcone is said to have sexually assaulted the girl and two others of the same age by touching them on the hips and waist, slapping two of them on the buttocks, and asking them questions of a sexual nature.

He is also said to have sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl by grabbing her breasts, and directed sexual verbal communications over a two-and-a-half year period to a fifth girl, who was aged between 14 and 17 at the time.

The alleged incidents are said to have taken place between November 2019 and April this year at the chippy in North Main Street.

For legal reasons, none of the girls can be identified.

Falcone, of Larbert, pleads not guilty to all the charges against him.

The summary trial, before Sheriff Craig Harris, was adjourned until February 27 when defence advocate Frances Connor will cross-examine the whistle-blowing girl, who began her evidence on Monday.