A knife-wielding Dundee rapist could be out on the streets within two and a half years thanks to the legal manoeuvring of a violent criminal who raped a schoolgirl while on the run from Castle Huntly.
Grant Stewart (45) was given a life sentence in May 2009 after trial judge Lord Bannatyne heard he had been freed on bail twice by sheriffs before raping a woman in Dundee armed with a knife. He had earlier assaulted another victim at a Dundee flat with intent to rape her.
Lord Bannatyne ruled Stewart would have to wait 10 years before he would be eligible for parole.
But Stewart has now become the latest criminal to benefit from a decision made by appeal court judges in May that tells judges how they must calculate the “punishment” part of a sentence when they impose orders for lifelong restriction.
Their landmark ruling was made after an appeal lodged by Robert Foye (31), who raped a 16-year-old girl near Cumbernauld after absconding from Castle Huntly and one-legged paedophile Morris Petch (51).
The Court of Appeal agreed that sentencing guidelines for life prisoners were flawed. The decided punishment part of a sentence must be no more than half of the determinate-fixed-term-part of the sentence. Previous rules had allowed a much longer period of punishment.
As a result, Lord Osborne, sitting with Lord Clarke, ruled on Thursday that Lord Bannatyne had been too harsh when jailing Stewart for a minimum of 10 years. He could now be released within two and a half years if the parole board believes he is no longer a risk to the public.
In the appeal ruling, Lord Osborne said if he is still judged a risk to the public he will be denied an early release.
“Such a state of affairs may never come into being; alternatively, if it does come into being, that may happen only at some distant point in the future, until when the subject will remain incarcerated,” he said.
Stewart, formerly of Broughty Ferry Road, attacked a 40-year-old woman in a Dundee flat, pushed her to the floor, exposed himself and pulled her into a bedroom. He struck again just over six months later, on June 8, 2008, when he held a knife to the throat of a 34-year-old woman and raped her.
Stewart denied the charges but was found guilty by a jury.
After his sentencing, Tayside Police Inspector Colin Gall described said, “It was a horrific crime by a man who preyed on vulnerable women he is a violent individual who was a risk to the public.”