Student jailed for sex attacks warned he may never be released

A former university student has been jailed and warned he may never be released after carrying out a series of sex attacks on young women.

David Ekpe’s first two victims were asleep when he preyed on them, but the third was conscious and managed to flee through the woods before a passing motorist went to her aid.

The 23-year-old, a former biomedicine student at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, sexually assaulted his first victim on July 11, 2022, at a flat in Grangemouth while the woman was asleep, intoxicated and incapable of consenting.

He was originally accused of spiking her drink with drugs without her knowledge, but was not convicted of that allegation.

He struck again on October 5, 2022, when he assaulted another sleeping woman, who was incapable of consenting, and subjected her to a rape at an accommodation in the Marchmont area of Edinburgh.

African-born Ekpe was placed under a curfew in bail orders granted by sheriffs in Falkirk and Edinburgh, but twice breached conditions that he remain in his flat in West Bryson Road, Edinburgh, within specific times.

Ekpe was released under four separate bail orders when he committed his final attack on April 25, 2023, in Cumbernauld. He repeatedly tried to kiss the woman, seized her body and touched her.

The woman was able to escape and ran through the woods into the path of a car, which stopped to help her.

A judge told Ekbe: “You have been found guilty of serious sexual offences against three young women.”

Judge Norman McFadyen said that reports prepared on the sex offender all assessed him as posing a high risk. He said expert reports “make troubling reading over the risk you present”.

He told Ekbe: “Plainly the court requires to impose a lengthy sentence of imprisonment.”

Mr McFadyen said: “It is appropriate, and indeed necessary, for the protection of the public that I make an Order for Lifelong Restriction (OLR).”

The judge ordered that as part of the sentence, Ekbe serve a minimum term of four and a half years in jail before he can seek to apply for parole.

He said it did not follow that the sex attacker and rapist would be eligible for release at the end of that period and told him he may never be released.

Any future decision to allow Ekpe’s release is for the parole authorities to make, and if he is freed, he will be on licence and can be returned to jail if he breaches conditions.

Defence counsel Mark Moir KC said of Ekbe: “He is an intelligent man. He was studying at university.”

The judge made non harassment orders prohibiting the offender contacting or attempting to contact victims and Elke was placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.