'Horrific' Whitburn blade killer Bertie Hall jailed for raping two little girls

A convicted killer has been jailed for nine years after subjecting two schoolgirls to ordeals of abuse and rape.

A judge told Bertie Hall that he was at a loss for words to describe how "utterly appalling" his conduct was to the victims.

Lord Richardson said: "You have been convicted of the horrific sexual abuse and rape of two children. Both of these children were vulnerable."

The judge told Hall, 54, at the High Court in Edinburgh: "It is clear that your actions have had a profound and long lasting effect on them."

Behind bars: Blade killer and child rapist Bertie Hall

Lord Richardson said he considered that they were to be commended for coming forward to testify against their abuser, who was assessed as posing a high risk of further sex offending.

He said that a background report on Hall revealed that he has shown some remorse for his actions with one child victim, but continued to deny any responsibility for the horrendous abuse perpetrated on the other girl.

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The judge said that a lengthy period of imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence he could impose on Hall to reflect his "appalling conduct". He also ordered that Hall should be under supervision for a further four years.

Lord Richardson told him that his latest sentence would begin at the conclusion of an eight year jail term he is currently serving for culpable homicide with his earliest release date in 2024.

Callous hall was jailed in 2017 for stabbing victim Terry Miller in the throat with a serrated bread knife during a festive booze-up in December 2016 after the victim accused him of sexually abusing women - something the court heard he had never been accused or convicted of at that time.

Emergency crews at the scene spent more than an hour trying to keep Mr Miller, 30, alive, but he drowned in his own blood.

The High Court in Livingston heard that Miller told detectives: "I didn't give him the chance to stab me. If he had the chance to stab me he'd have killed me."

Moments after striking the fatal blow Miller staggered into the street covered in blood and still carrying the knife.

He told one neighbour: “Listen, I've just murdered a guy in my house”.

Another said he had walked up to him in the street and said: "Excuse me, can you help me? I've killed somebody."

Hall began his sex offending in 2000 when he preyed on a girl who was then aged 10 and molested her at a house in Whitburn, in West Lothian.

He went on to repeatedly rape the girl at addresses in the town and at a park into her teenage years.

Hall went on to abuse a second girl from the age of 14 in 2012 and subjected her to sex attacks during which she was raped at houses in Whitburn.

He had denied a series of charges during an earlier trial but was found guilty of three rape offences and one of indecent conduct.

Defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin said Hall had "a troubled upbringing" and added: "He has various health problems one might associate with alcohol dependency."

Hall was placed on the Sex Offenders' Register indefinitely.

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