Rapist carried out decade-long campaign of abuse against women and teen girls

A sex offender who carried out a campaign of abuse and rape against women and teenage girls has been jailed for 12 years.

Dean MacGregor, 38, began targeting victims in 2010 and continued his crime spree against women in Orkney, Aberfeldy, in Perthshire and Perth until 2022.

MacGregor, a father of three, had denied a series of charges at an earlier trial.

The judge sentenced him to a 17-year extended sentence with the jail term followed by a five-year period when he will be on licence in the community, but can be returned to prison if he breaches the conditions.

MacGregor subjected his first victim to a series of assaults at addresses in Orkney during which she was punched, kicked, pushed, pulled and spat on. She was also gripped by the neck, and her head was struck against a wall, leaving her unconscious.

He also shouted and swore at the woman, made offensive remarks towards and threatened her. In 2016, he raped the woman at a house in Aberfeldy while she was asleep and incapable of consenting.

MacGregor then targeted a teenager who was subjected to repeated rapes at a flat in Kirkwall, Orkney. The first assault took place in 2017 when she was aged 15 and he was 30, and some of the sex attacks occurred when she was under the influence of drink and drugs.

In 2020, he sexually assaulted and attempted to rape another teenager at a different address in Kirkwall.

Lord Ericht said: “She was so unresponsive from alcohol and drugs that after the incident she was admitted to hospital.”

The judge said that the only reason the rape attempt was not completed was that another person intervened and pushed him away.

MacGregor went on to subject a fourth victim to violence, and on one occasion in 2022, assaulted the woman to the danger of his life at a house in Perth when he attended at the address uninvited and pushed her to the floor before grabbing and compressing her throat.

His final victim was abused and assaulted by MacGregor at a house in Perth in 2022. He throttled, punched, threatened her and shaved her hair.

He also raped the woman when she was sleeping and incapable of consenting or withholding consent to sex.

By the time of the final attack, MacGregor had been freed under six separate bail orders granted at sheriff courts in Perth and Dundee.

Defence counsel Duncan McPhie told the court: “Addiction has blighted his life. That is both alcohol and drugs, including heroin.”

He said that MacGregor continued to deny the sexual offending, but there has been a “sea change” in his life, and he has been assessed as posing a medium risk.

Mr McPhie said a risk assessor who prepared a report on MacGregor had concluded that measures short of the imposition of an Order for Lifelong Restriction (OLR) were appropriate in his case.

A judge told him at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You have been convicted unanimously by the jury of a series of 12 offences, including violence and sexual offences, against five women over a period of around 12 years.”

Lord Ericht said: “You have a long record of convictions including violent and sexual offending, albeit as your counsel has pointed out not as serious as the present charges.”

MacGregor was placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely following his sentencing. Lord Ericht made non harassment orders prohibiting him from approaching or attempting to contact victims for an indefinite period.