A terminally ill sex offender could die in jail after he was imprisoned for three years.
Fife businessman John Goldie (59) abused two young girls, one of them from the age of six and into adulthood.
The financial adviser who continues to deny his crimes has cancer and doctors expect him to live no more than five years but possibly only a year.
His lawyer attempted to keep him out of jail to aid his treatment, which is to include a stem cell transplant.
However, outside Cupar Sheriff Court a relative of one of his victims, who are both now adults, said it was right he was locked up but the term was too short.
She told The Courier, “The sentence was deserved but I think it maybe should have been for longer.”
Although a social worker assessed Goldie as posing a low risk of reoffending, the relative claimed that his continued denial of the abuse made him more dangerous.
The accusations against Goldie only emerged in late 2008.
The woman said, “It’s almost like life has been on hold for us,” but added, “If this encourages anyone else that has suffered similar things so long ago to come forward, that’s a good thing.”
Passing sentence, Sheriff Mungo Bovey told Goldie, of Morar Road, Crossford, near Dunfermline, “The offences of which they (the jury) found you guilty were courses of conduct of the lowest kind, calling for a severe penalty.
“No amount of prison can make reparation for the young women you abused as children but society’s disapproval must be marked.”
If he lives to be released, Goldie will remain under supervision in the community for three years and on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
He was found guilty of six counts of abuse after a nine-day trial in which his victims relived their ordeals.
Many of the assaults against one victim took place in a car and she told the court how Goldie would often stop on level crossings to further terrify her.
The other victim, who was preyed upon for seven years from the age of eight, was once assaulted in a spa bath at a Fife hotel.
During his trial, Goldie who maintained the public image of a respectable businessman while the abuse was going on claimed his victims were lying on the witness stand and had been coerced into making false allegations.
He first blamed social workers for trying to poison people and then accused the press of trying to destroy his business, John P. Goldie & Co, Financial Advisors.
But the jury took just an hour and a half to reach its verdict, finding him guilty by majority on four charges and unanimously on two. Goldie was earlier cleared of abusing a third child.
Advocate depute Rosemary Guinnane said Goldie’s condition had deteriorated since the trial in April and his life expectancy reduced dramatically.
He was hospitalised due to pain last month and is soon to undergo a stem cell transplant. His treatment, she said, would not save him, only prolong his life.
Suggesting he be placed on probation due to his health and his assessed low risk of reoffending, Ms Guinnane said, “I would ask your lordship, given all the circumstances, to impose a sentence where he remains in the community clearly restricted by means of an order and by virtue of his condition and not to impose a prison sentence.”