Leith predator Kevin Turner targeted Japanese tourist in Musselburgh Airbnb flat

A high risk sex predator was jailed for six years today after launching a terrifying attack on a young Japanese tourist at a holiday flat.

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Kevin Turner forced his way into the property before assaulting his victim and repeatedly demanding sex from her.

A judge told Turner: "As you recognise the gravity of your offending is such, there is no alternative to a custodial sentence and a significant one at that."

Turner was jailed after a trial at the High Court in Livingston

Lord Braid said that the sex attack has had lasting consequences for the victim and added: "She is still suffering from daily flashbacks."

The judge said: "On her evidence the incident was a sustained one and you were in her flat for about an hour."

Lord Braid told Turner at the High Court in Edinburgh: "It must have been terrifying in the extreme."

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The court heard that Turner, 29, who was abusing drink and drugs at the time, was assessed as posing a high risk of further offending.

Lord Braid ordered that Turner should be kept under supervision for a further six years following his conviction for the sex attack.

He was earlier found guilty of assaulting the woman with intent to rape her on February 9 in 2019 at the flat in Musselburgh, in East Lothian.

During the attack the visitor to Scotland was grabbed by the neck and pinned against a wall as the intruder shouted and demanded sex.

She was pulled into a bedroom and pushed to the floor as Turner tried to take off her lower clothing.

The court heard that the woman was on the second day of her once-in-a-lifetime trip to Scotland when the attack took place.

The 24-year-old woman gave evidence at Turner's earlier trial via a live TV link to Tokyo. She said she told detectives that her attacker had distinctive tattoos and identified him from photos she was shown by police.

The woman had been sightseeing in Edinburgh before catching a bus from the city's Princes Street back to her rented holiday flat in Musselburgh.

She had entered the building when she heard knocking at the outer door and thought it might be one of the other residents in the block and opened it.

She said: "It was a man, but I didn't know him. I didn't have any conversation but I went back to my flat."

Shortly afterwards she heard further knocking at the door to her flat and looked out through a peephole but could not see anyone. After it was repeated she opened the door and came face to face with the man she had seen at the main entrance door.

"He said: 'Are you okay?' he just pushed to open the door. I was very frightened. I tried to push back but he came into my room.," she said.

"I remember he just strangled my neck. He pushed me against the wall and I tried to just leave him," she told the court.

She said Turner came towards her and she tried to struggle but ended up on her back on the floor as he was undoing her jeans and trying to pull them off of her.

The woman said she fought back but Turner was asking her more than once to have sexual intercourse. She said: "I think I just kept saying 'no'."

The woman said he also asked her to hand over keys during the ordeal at the holiday let.

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Turner, originally from Leith, also targeted another stranger in a further sexual incident two months later, while he was on bail from Edinburgh Sheriff Court

He approached a 50-year-old woman at Harrison Road, in Edinburgh, and asked her to to a secluded area "for fun". a

The council employee said she had gone to park to pick up her son from football practice on May 7 in 2019.

As she walked along the secluded former railway path she said she felt "scared" passing a strange young man.

She said: "I could see him walking up and down and |I thought; 'He's a sexual predator'." She said he followed her and appeared beside her.

"He said: 'Do you want to go back there for some fun?' He was pointing to this secluded railway path. I thought he meant:'Do you want to have sex?'. I said: 'F*** off. Go away.'," she said.

Turner was convicted of behaving in a threatening or abusive way by directing a sexual remark towards the woman. He was given a four month concurrent jail sentence for the offence.

He was also placed on the Sex Offender's Register indefinitely.

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