Man who sexually abused schoolgirls faces lengthy jail sentence

A MAN who preyed on young girls, including one who went on to write a book about the horrific childhood abuse she suffered, is today facing a lengthy prison sentence.

Dana Fowley pictured in 2007. Picture: Bill Henry.

William King had sex with a 12-year-old girl and forced another underage child to perform a sex act on him.

The father-of-two had denied the offences but was convicted of three sex charges, although he was acquitted of a further charge of rape on a not proven verdict.

One of the victims, Dana Fowley, who has waived her right to anonymity, said outside the High Court in Edinburgh: “I am delighted. I have been waiting 19 years for this.”

She said she had first reported the offending to police in 1997 and during evidence in court detailed some of the other abuse she had suffered as a child at the hands of King’s late father, Billy senior, his grandparents, her mother and other accomplices.

She said: “There were more abuse days than normal days.”

She said her step-father Billy King began abusing her at about the age of five. Ms Fowley, 35, told jurors how her mother was jailed for her part in the abuse along with others. Caroline Dunsmore was aged 43 when she sentenced to 12 years in 2007. John O’Flaherty was aged 50 when he was sentenced to 13 years and Morris ‘Mo’ Petch was also 50 when he was given a life sentence the same year.

She said King junior had come into her life because of his father and was aware of her age. She said she was aged about 12 and a half after she “chummed” him to his house in the Granton area and he started kissing her.

“I think by the time I got to 12 nothing shocked me in life,” she told the court. “This was just a normal day to me to be honest,” she said. She said King junior would phone and make arrangements to meet her and would take her to his house or out in the car.

“I wasn’t screaming and bawling, but I was only 12,” she told advocate depute Shanti Maguire. “He would tell me he was leaving his wife for me. He told me he loved me. He gave me a ring.”

She described the behaviour she encountered as “perfect grooming”.

She said on one occasion his wife had phoned and King junior was out of breath, but he had claimed he had to run up the road for cat food.

Sales representative King, of Diamond Grove, Dunfermline, was convicted of sexually abusing her between August 1992 and June 1995 at houses in Edinburgh and Inverkeithing and having unlawful sexual intercourse.

He was also found guilty of indecency towards a second girl whom he preyed on from the age of seven from 1990 to 1994 at houses in Edinburgh and Inverkeithing. He had also been accused of raping the second victim, but was acquitted on that charge.

Defence counsel Ronnie Renucci said he accepted a prison term was inevitable, but asked for bail to be continued on the first offender ahead of sentencing next month.

The judge, Lady Wolffe, told King: “You have been found guilty of extremely serious matters and as your counsel has accepted a custodial sentence in inevitable.”

She remanded him in custody and placed him on the sex offenders’ register.