Nine-year jail term for catalogue of abuse

A RAPIST was jailed for nine years after attacking pregnant women during a catalogue of degradation and abuse of victims.

Mark Duthie (pictured) preyed on seven women during a 15-year spree of offending in which victims were subjected to rape, assault and abduction.

Duthie, 33, began committing crimes against females when he was aged 16 by kicking his first victim on the stomach while she was pregnant and in a separate incident at a house in Forfar, holding her down and raping her in 2003.

Eight years later he subjected another woman to rapes at a house in Montrose.

On one occasion he assaulted her while she was asleep and on another she was punched on the head during the attack.

Other victims were subjected to violence by Duthie.

One woman was kicked in the groin by him at a lane in Brechin in August 2 0 0 9 w h i l e s h e wa s pregnant.

A judge told Duthie, formerly of Barry, near Carnoustie, that victims had experienced long lasting emotional and psychological trauma.

Lord Boyd of Duncansby said: “You appear to have no conception of the harm you inflicted on these women.”

Duthie was earlier found guilty of a total of 28 charges committed between January 2003 and January 2018.

The j udge said that apart from the rapes against two of the women Duthie had also carried out “a sustained course of physical and psychological abuse” against victims over a long period of time.

Duthie, who has never previously served a prison sentence, was told that he would be kept under supervision and monitored for a further two years.

He was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

He locked some of his victims in houses in Montrose and throttled women in attacks in the town and in Arbroath.