A Bulgarian man who attacked young girls in Dundee in an incident which led to a widely shared video on social media has been sentenced and placed on the sex offender register.

Ilia Belov and his sister Nadjedzha Belova were sentenced on Friday at the city’s sheriff court.

It followed an incident in the Lochee area of the city in August 2025 in which a young girl could be seen brandishing an axe and a knife.

Elon Musk was among those to share the video, saying the girl was trying to defend herself.

Police had initially attacked “misinformation” around the video.

However, Police Scotland said its own initial response “did not fully reflect the situation”.

Belov, 23, assaulted a 12-year-old girl during the incident and behaved in a “threatening or abusive manner” towards four girls aged between 12 and 14.

On Friday, he was sentenced to 18 months of supervision, 300 hours of unpaid work, and had his name placed on the sex offender register for 18 months.

He had been found guilty following a trial at Dundee Sheriff Court earlier this year.

Belova, 20, earlier pleaded guilty to one charge of assaulting a 13-year-old girl during the same incident.

She was sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work during the same hearing at Dundee Sheriff Court on Friday.

Sheriff Timothy Niven-Smith had earlier rejected Belov’s version of events, describing it as “neither credible nor reliable”.

During the trial, the court heard the incident began when Belov made sexual remarks to a 12-year-old as she walked towards a bus stop with some other girls.

In an ensuing fracas, Belov pushed the 12-year-old, who told the court she hit her head on a metal handrail as she fell to the ground.

After standing back up, she pulled out an axe and knife she said had been hidden in her waistband for five to 10 minutes before the incident.

When the police arrived minutes later, the girl said she dumped the weapons on a nearby roundabout, where they were later recovered by officers.

Belov had denied having made sexualised remarks to the girls, telling the court they had been saying derogatory things to him, including calling him a “f****** migrant”.

Sentencing Belov, Sheriff Niven-Smith said it was “inevitable” that something would happen when he chose to follow the girls, and that his actions were “intended to intimidate”.

“The victims have sustained psychological trauma from your actions,” Belov was told.

The sheriff also determined that Belov’s comments towards the youngest victim had a “significant sexual aspect”.

He added the comments Belov made towards the girls was for “sexual gratification”.

Sheriff Niven-Smith was clear the offences for both Belov and his sister crossed the threshold for imprisonment, but considering their age, work history and lack of other previous or ongoing offences, he imposed an alternative sentence that he said “primarily considered rehabilitation”.

Belov’s solicitor Larry Flynn told the court before sentencing that his client had been impacted by the widespread attention the case gained in the press and on social media.

The court heard Belov and Belova have found it hard to gain employment in Scotland since the case began, with Belova travelling to the Netherlands for work picking fruit as the case allowed.

However, Sheriff Niven-Smith emphasised that footage Belov took of one of the victims holding weapons found its way on to the internet.

He said Belov himself, or someone he sent the video to, must have uploaded the footage, and that he became the “author of his own misfortune in that regard”.

Later, the sheriff said the victims have also been affected by the footage.

Child victims are normally granted a right to anonymity.

In this case, Sheriff Niven-Smith noted that images have appeared on social media and in the public domain.

Speaking to reporters as he left the court building on Friday, Belov said he had “nothing to say” to the young victims “other than to wish everyone a good life”.

“I will continue to be as normal as I was before, look after my family, look after my community and everyone,” he said.

Belov told the press that he has lost “many things” as a result of the case.

“It’s hard actually. Every one of you have families, and you have to feed children, you have to look after wife and things, and all the pressure on social media has brought everything on me and my life, and my family,” he said.

“I will continue to be the man I was before – normal, happy, looking after his children.”

A moment later when asked about the victims, he said: “You have to think about that, the girl was wearing weapons too. Can you talk about that?”

Belova’s solicitor said in hindsight she has acknowledged she should have called police instead of getting involved herself, and she has expressed “embarrassment and regret” since the assault.

Sheriff Niven-Smith recognised why she may have readily attended the scene at the request of her brother, whom the sheriff said she looked up to, but he said it was clear she went “with the intention of assaulting one or more of the girls”.

The judge said following the incident, one of the victims was “extremely distressed” and “frantic and crying loudly”.