SNS GroupA man who carried out a Christmas Day sex attack on a new mother during a catalogue of abuse against women has been jailed.
Iain Johnstone, 35, attempted to rape the woman at a house in Grangemouth, in Stirlingshire, within days of her giving birth.
The victim told a court: “His hands were wandering down over my body. He started pulling my trousers down. At this point I told him ‘no’. I had stitches. I was in a lot of pain.”
Advocate depute Bill McVicar asked the woman what she thought was going to happen and she replied: “I thought I was going to get raped and he would pull my stitches out.”
“I had to keep saying ‘no, no, no, no, no’ until he stopped,” she told the High Court in Edinburgh.
Johnston, formerly of Grangemouth, was found guilty of attempting to rape the woman on December 25, 2022.
He had denied a series of sex charges during a trial but was found guilty of 13 offences, including six rape crimes and further sexual assaults.
Johnston targeted two women in a succession of sex crimes beginning in 2012. His first victim was subjected to repeated rapes at addresses in Grangemouth, Falkirk and Stenhousemuir. He assaulted her when she was asleep and awake, and the crimes continued until 2015.
His second victim, who was attacked on Christmas Day, was subjected to further sexual assaults and rapes in the Grangemouth area in 2022.
The woman, aged 37, said she was also assaulted when she was sleeping and awake and said: “I felt violated. I felt I was being used for his own pleasure.”
She said that during one attack on her she tried to push him off but he was too heavy. She said: “I told him ‘no, I was sore’ and he wouldn’t listen.”
The court heard of messages between her and Johnston, and in one she said: “It was as if you didn’t care whether I wanted it or not.”
The woman said she phoned her mum when she was shopping and read her some of the messages. “She said ‘that’s rape, you need to report that.”
After the jury returned its verdict the court heard that Johnston was a first offender.
Defence counsel Wendy Culross KC asked that his bail be continued while a background report is prepared on him ahead of sentencing.
But a judge remanded him in custody and told him that he inevitably faced “a significant custodial sentence” following the verdict.
Judge Norman McFadyen KC placed him on the sex offenders register .
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