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Triple rapist farm worker from Perthshire who ‘got a thrill’ from pain ‘smirked’ after sex attack

Ruaraidh McCartney faces years in prison after being convicted of three rapes.

Ruaraidh McCartney was found guilty at the High Court in Stirling last month.
Ruaraidh McCartney was found guilty at the High Court in Stirling last month.

A triple rapist from Perthshire who “got a thrill” out of his victim’s pain faces prison after being convicted at the high court.

A jury was told Ruaraidh McCartney regarded “no” as a “go harder button”.

The 29-year-old was found guilty of raping three women.

What began as consensual sex turned increasingly violent as the former farm worker forced himself on the women.

‘A look I remember to this day’

The High Court in Stirling heard one woman was repeatedly raped by McCartney at addresses in and around Crieff over more than two years between 2011 and 2013.

She told the the jury: “The word ‘no’ was like a go-harder button for Ruaraidh McCartney.”

She said McCartney “got a thrill out of seeing her in pain” and had also kicked, headbutted, part-strangled and beaten her.

His second victim, now aged 33, said in the autumn or winter of 2019, they had begun having consensual sex when she became uncomfortable and asked him to stop.

She tried to leave the room but he grabbed her, pushed her down and continued.

She said she was left in tears, while McCartney simply smirked afterwards.

She told the jury: “It’s a look I remember to this day.”

Found by police in victim’s bed

McCartney was arrested after raping his third victim, described as his “on-off girlfriend”, on her own bed in 2021 after they had gone clubbing.

He seized her hair, throat and arms and forced her to perform an act she described asĀ “horrible, sore, disgusting”.

The court heard he laughed when she told him he was being too rough and cried, begged him to stop and struggled to breathe.

She pulled on pyjamas, grabbed her phone, ran from the house and
phoned police, “hysterical”.

Officers sped to the scene and found her sitting on the pavement near her home, crying and “rocking” and initially so distressed she was unable to speak.

McCartney was still inside her house when police arrived and found him in her bed.

‘Their resistance increased his pleasure’

At the end of a seven-day trial on Wednesday, a jury found McCartney, of Crieff, guilty of raping all three women, the first one repeatedly.

Prosecutor Leigh Lawrie said: “For Ruaraidh McCartney, the evidence before the court was of a course of criminal conduct, persistently pursued by him, involving the rape and sexual assault of three women.

“Consensual sexual activity degenerated into McCartney taking matters too far, to a level of sexual violence.

“He placed his own sexual gratification above their continued consent.

“Their resistance increased his pleasure.”

Judge Lord Summers deferred sentence until August 1 at the High Court in Lanark for reports and remanded McCartney in custody.

Tony Graham KC, for the defence, reserved mitigation.

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