Serial sex abuser facing life in jail

Brian Mackenzie was convicted at the High Court in Edinburgh. Picture: Bill Henry

Brian Mackenzie, 40, was convicted of a catalogue of sexual and physical offences against six victims.

They include rape, attempted rape, underage sex, indecency and assault over a 13-year period at addresses in the Capital and Glenrothes, Fife.

A judge told the former security guard that because of the number and seriousness of the crimes that the risk criteria for making an Order for Lifelong Restriction may be met.

Under such a sentence a court fixes the minimum term the offender must serve in prison but any future decision over release is left to the parole authorities.

Mackenzie was found guilty of nine sex offences against three women and two children and physical violence towards three women after a five-week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

He was acquitted of further charges on a string of not guilty and no proven decisions.

The mother of one victim told the court she “wanted to kill” Mackenzie when her sobbing daughter revealed she had been abused by him – but said she had to stay a week at the flat in Craigmillar where Mackenzie lived.

She said: “When I got to the flat I took a knife from the kitchen drawer and put it in my pocket and it stayed there for a week.

“If he had made one move to my daughter I would have stabbed him.”

Mackenzie attacked his first victim in 2000 and she was repeatedly struck on the head and hit with a vacuum attachment. Another woman was subjected to a rape bid at his Craigmillar flat.

Mackenzie went on to have underage sex with a 15-year-old girl at a bed and breakfast in Leith. He later attacked the same teenage victim, grabbing her by the throat and striking her on the head while she was holding a baby.

Mackenzie later raped another woman at a flat in Edinburgh, sexually assaulted her and repeatedly tried to strangle her.

He was also convicted of molesting a girl who was aged ten and a child aged 12 at a house in Glenrothes in 2012 and 2013.

He was placed on the sex offenders’ register.

Lord Uist told jurors they were excused from further jury service for life, adding: “You have come to the end of this really horrible case in which you have had to listen to some quite disgusting evidence. In some ways, it has been more of an ordeal than a trial.”

The judge called for a full risk assessment on Mackenzie and deferred sentence until July.