A rapist who threatened women with knives and throttled victims was jailed for eight years for his violent abuse.
Christian Robson, 27, attacked five women in a cruel catalogue of crime that spanned an eight-year period.
A judge told Robson at the High Court in Edinburgh: “The charges are so serious that there is no alternative to a custodial sentence.”
Lady Carmichael said she was required to consider Robson’s culpability in light of his age and maturity at the time of the offending.
The judge said that in sentencing him, she took into account he experienced “very significant trauma” during his childhood.
Robson was told that he will be under supervision for a further three years and will be on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely.
He committed offences at addresses in Alva, Tullibody and Sauchie, in Clackmannanshire, Denny, in Stirlingshire and Auchterarder, in Perthshire.
Mother’s death threat
The mother of one teenage victim told his earlier trial she threatened to kill him after she found out what he had done to her daughter.
She said she spoke to him during a call and said: “I can’t remember the exact words – it was along the lines of ‘you dirty, beast b*****d, you raped my daughter’.”
The woman, 46, added: “When I threatened to kill him and to tell the truth, he admitted it.
“He said ‘yes, I done it’ and he was apologetic.”
She was later contacted by her daughter who asked her to come and get her from a house.
Robson was at the address.
Of the ensuing confrontation, she said: “A lot of words were said along the lines of ‘you raped my daughter I am going to kill you’.”
The woman, who had been out with her husband, said Robson was shouting for help.
She said: “When I asked him again to admit it, he admitted it.”
Advocate depute Graeme Jessop asked her if she was threatening him when he made the admission and she replied: “I was hitting him.”
Attacks took place over eight years
The woman’s 15-year-old daughter was Robson’s first victim when he raped her at a house in Alva in 2011, after holding a knife against her.
He attacked a second woman in Tullibody in 2013 and 2014.
During one assault he chased her and pinned her against a wall and put his hands around her neck and throttled her.
A third victim was attacked at addresses in Sauchie.
She was also throttled by him and he put a knife to her neck.
She was also kicked, punched and dragged by the hair.
A fourth woman was assaulted and raped by him at a house in Auchterarder in 2017 when she was pinned to a bed.
He put his hands around the victim’s neck and compressed it, restricting her breathing.
His final target was raped at an address in Denny between 2017 and 2019.
During the violence he brandished a hammer and screwdriver at her and also squeezed her neck.
‘Compliant’ prisoner
Robson, of Sauchie, had denied a string of charges during his trial but was found guilty of eight offences of assault and rape.
The Crown had originally moved that a full risk assessment report should be prepared which can lead to the imposition of an Order for Lifelong Restriction.
However, Robson’s defence counsel, Wendy Hay, argued against the imposition of such an indeterminate sentence.
She said: “He has never been in prison before.
“The likelihood is he will be compliant with offence-focused work in prison.”
She said Robson was the victim of serious trauma from a young age but was now “a candidate for change and rehabilitation”.
