Teenage rapist locked up for three years

The High Court in Edinburgh. File picture: Ian Georgeson

The 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, ignored two victims when they told him to stop and raped them within a two month period.

He had earlier carried out a sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl who he repeatedly asked for intercourse.

A judge told the teenager at the High Court in Edinburgh: “It seems to me plain you have shown yourself to be a risk to underage girls.”

Lady Stacey said: “Therefore a sentence of detention is the only suitable disposal. It is also plain to me you need guidance and structure in you life.”

The judge ordered that the youth be under supervision for a further year.

Lady Stacey told the teenager that she took his age into account and reduced the sentence she had to impose accordingly.

The judge said that he had been convicted of three serious offences, but according to a background report prepared on him did not accept his guilt.

One clearly upset girl sitting in the public benches at the court left saying: “How the f--- did he only get three years?”

The teenager, from Midlothian, was convicted after a trial last year of touching and seizing a 13-year-old girl and making sexual remarks at a house in January 2013.

He was also found guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl in March the following year after ignoring her when she told him “No”.

He was further found guilty of raping another 14-year-old in May 2014 after ordering her not to speak during the assault. All the offences occurred at towns in Midlothian.

The court was told that the rapist was raised in a household marked by parental drug abuse, offending and violence with little appropriate guidance.

Defence counsel Wendy Hay said: “He does not seek to minimise the offences. He recognises now these are extremely serious offences.”

She said the teenager was 14 when the first of the sex crimes occurred and 15 when the rapes took place. She said: “There are multiple complainers who were young themselves, but at the time of these offences he also was still a child himself.”

Miss Hay said there had been a lack of family support and added: “It is not terribly surprising he had had no boundaries.”

“This was a 14 and 15-year-old without any boundaries in his life,” she told the court.

He had been held at a residential unit and had made good progress there, she said. Miss Hay said there was already “a marked improvement” in his attitude and behaviour.

The defence counsel said his partner is pregnant and he very much regretted appearing before the court for sentencing on the charges, but understood and accepted that the judge had no alternative but to sentence him to detention.

The youth was previously placed on the sex offenders’ register.