A rapist who began committing sex crimes when he was aged just 13 has been jailed for seven years.
Mark Newman was convicted of five charges – four unanimously – following a trial.
Newman, 63, formerly of Laurencekirk, was found guilty of raping an adult woman, assaulting a teenager with intent to rape her and three indecency offences involving two girls.
The offences happened between August 1972 and December 1987 and took place at a house in Ross-shire and addresses at Peterhead and Aberdeen.
Victim tells of terror
One victim told the court: “I was terrified of him, terrified.”
She later reported the abuse to police and said: “I felt a load off my shoulders, that somebody had listened to me.”
The woman, now 55, said Newman began abusing her when she was a young child and would give her sweets or small amounts of money “not to say anything”.
She told advocate depute Leanne Cross: “I couldn’t say how many times.
“It was just whenever he got a chance.”
She said Newman also got her to perform a sex act on him, as well as taking his opportunities to molest her as a child.
Voyeur attacked lone teen
The woman told the court he also attacked her at a house in the Bucksburn area of Aberdeen when she was a teenager after she was on a sofa kissing and cuddling with her then boyfriend while they watched TV.
She said: “I heard something at the patio doors at the back of the house.
“I didn’t think anything of it. He came through the patio doors.
“He had been watching us.”
She told how her boyfriend left before Newman grabbed her and began touching her.
The woman said she was shouting and screaming, adding: “I was fighting him off to stop him.
“I thought he was going to rape me and so I kept screaming at him.”
She said she later fled from the house after the attack ceased.
The assault on the teenager was between August 1983 and August 1986.
Second and third targets
He had earlier raped a woman at a caravan in Aberdeen on an occasion between January 1978 and December 1980.
Newman attacked his victim when she was alone with him.
His final victim was a seven-year-old girl at a house in Aberdeen, where Newman unzipped his trousers and tried to get her to touch him.
Newman had denied the offences during trial but Ms Cross told the jury: “The evidence you have heard shows there was a clear course of conduct being systematically carried out by the accused.”
After jurors found him guilty, Newman told the court the proceedings were “a total farce” and they had been misled.
Newman’s defence counsel Tony Lenehan KC told the High Court in Edinburgh his client now regrets his outburst and apologised.
On Register indefinitely
A judge told Newman: “These are serious crimes.
“You exploited the vulnerability of the children you abused.”
Lord Beckett said some of the offending was committed against children who were very young at the time.
The judge told him he would be put on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely following his sentencing.
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