Sex attacker assaulted Japanese tourist at holiday flat

A sex attacker has been jailed for six years after assaulting a young Japanese tourist at a holiday flat.

Kevin Turner forced his way into the property before assaulting his victim and repeatedly demanding sex from her.

A judge told Turner: “As you recognise the gravity of your offending is such, there is no alternative to a custodial sentence and a significant one at that.”

Lord Braid said that the sex attack has had lasting consequences for the victim and added: “She is still suffering from daily flashbacks.”

The judge said: “On her evidence the incident was a sustained one and you were in her flat for about an hour.”

Lord Braid told 29-year-old Turner at the High Court in Edinburgh: “It must have been terrifying in the extreme.”

The court heard Turner, who was abusing drink and drugs at the time, was assessed as posing a high risk of further offending.

Lord Braid ordered Turner should be kept under supervision for a further six years following his conviction for the sex attack.

He was found guilty of assaulting the woman with intent to rape her on February 9, 2019, at a flat in Musselburgh, East Lothian.

During the attack the visitor to Scotland was grabbed by the neck and pinned against a wall.

She was pulled into a bedroom and pushed to the floor as Turner tried to remove her clothing.

The court heard that the woman was on the second day of her trip to Scotland when the attack took place.

The 24-year-old woman gave evidence at Turner’s earlier trial via a live TV link to Tokyo.

She said she told detectives that her attacker had distinctive tattoos and identified him from photos she was shown by police.

The woman had been sightseeing in Edinburgh before catching a bus from the city’s Princes Street back to her rented holiday flat.

She had entered the building when she heard knocking at the outer door and thought it might be one of the other residents in the block and opened it.

She said: “It was a man, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t have any conversation but I went back to my flat.”

Shortly afterwards she heard further knocking at the door to her flat and looked out through a peephole but could not see anyone.

After it was repeated she opened the door and came face to face with the man she had seen at the main entrance door.

“He said: ‘Are you okay?’ he just pushed to open the door. I was very frightened. I tried to push back but he came into my room.,” she said.

“I remember he just strangled my neck. He pushed me against the wall and I tried to just leave him,” she told the court.

She said Turner came towards her and she tried to struggle but ended up on her back on the floor as he was undoing her jeans and trying to pull them off of her.

The woman said she fought back but Turner was asking her more than once to have sexual intercourse. She said: “I think I just kept saying ‘no’.”

The woman said he also asked her to hand over keys during the ordeal at the holiday let.

Lord Braid said Turner’s defence counsel had referred to various issues in his life which have never been addressed.

The judge said: “It is to be hoped these can be addressed during the sentence I am about to impose.

Defence counsel Ronnie Renucci QC asked the judge to deal with Turner as leniently as he could, recognising, as did Turner, that it was “a serious matter”.

Turner was placed on the sex offender’s register indefinitely.