A Fife pensioner jailed for 15 years after admitting a catalogue of ”barbaric” abuse has appealed the sentence.
Kenneth Blair was locked up in September after the High Court heard details of a sickening 19-year reign of terror.
The 66-year-old had pleaded guilty to subjecting his wife and also two children to appalling physical abuse, starting in 1967.
He also admitted raping a young girl.
The abuse was meted out at various addresses in Fife.
Blair began assaulting his wife within a week of them marrying and the violence continued until the pair separated in 1986.
The court heard he would laugh as he beat her so hard she would end up lying curled up on the floor.
Blair went on to repeatedly assault a child aged between four and 16 and another child when aged between two and 15. Both are now in the their 40s.
Blair punched them until they were sick, struck the youngsters with a belt and also made them sit in baths of scalding hot water.
The pensioner was jailed after he further admitted raping a girl when she was aged between 12 and 15.
Jailing Blair at the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Lady Stacey told him: ”No sentence I can pass on you can make up for the damage you caused.”
Blair’s prison term had been reduced by 25% because his guilty plea meant his victims were spared the trauma of giving evidence.
His appeal against the 15-year jail term will be heard in Edinburgh on December 7.
David Green, the area procurator fiscal for Fife, had said: ”There are no words to express the profound effect that his actions have had on his victims, or that could encapsulate the seriousness and extent of his persistently violent and sexual abuse.
”I hope the conviction demonstrates clearly that there is no time limit on justice, nor should people affected by such crimes ever fear coming forward to report them.”
Police recently reopened an inquiry into the death of a baby fathered by Blair.
Six-week-old Colin Blair died in a tenement flat in Dundee in 1968.
The cause of death, treated by police at the time as ”unexplained”, was put down to inhaling vomit and bleeding inside the baby’s skull.
Tayside Police said they had launched a new inquiry after fresh information.