Fife man who raped teen and sexually assaulted pal facing prison

A FIFE man is facing a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of the historic rape of a teenage girl and the sexual assault of a young woman.

First offender Ben McLeary had his name added to the sex offenders register following his conviction on two charges at the High Court in Livingston.

He was found guilty of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting the younger teenager, now aged 21, at his mother’s home in Glenrothes, on various occasions between February and June 2015.

He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a former female friend, also now 21, at student flats in Dundee in March 2018.

Sentencing will take place on April 20. McLeary, of Havannah Street, Glasgow, was acquitted of having under-age sex with a 15-year-old girl in April or May 2015 after the jury found the charge not proven.

McLeary, 21, dabbed away tears as the majority verdicts were read out.

Earlier charges alleging that he took or attempted to take pornographic videos and photographs beneath the clothing of three young women were withdrawn by the prosecution due to a lack of evidence.

The first of McLeary’s victims told the jury he pinned her to his bed and raped her when she was aged between 15 and 16.

She said she did not report him at the time because it was her first sexual relationship and she “didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t”.

She said: “I would say no. I’d try to nudge him away from me.

“I’d be lying back on his bed and he’d be probably on top of me.

“He would work his way up and sort of pin my arms down to the bed either by my side or up to my shoulder with his knees.

“I just continued to say no, I didn’t want to.

“He would say things like ‘you’ll like it’, ‘you usually enjoy it’, ‘it’s fun’ then he would just continue.

“I couldn’t do much physically with my hands pinned beside me.”

His second victim, a former close friend of the accused, told how they had gone to Dundee for a university reunion with another friend in March 2018.

They both spent the night in a student residence there and in the middle of the night the victim invited McLeary to lie with her in the duvet on which she was sleeping on the floor.

She said he began to touch her sexually. She told the jury he did not ask and she did not say he could.

She said they were close friends, nothing more.

She told how she lay “frozen” as he assaulted her and how she felt “embarrassed and disgusted” by what he did to her.

Her student friend told how she was crying as she recounted it.

On the bus back to Glenrothes she said she felt angry with McLeary when he denied sexually assaulting her.

The jury took just over seven hours to return their verdicts.

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