Fife man’s catalogue of sexual assaults

A rapist who refused to sit in court for his trial has been convicted of a near threedecade-long catalogue of violence and serious sexual assaults against a number of women.

Kenneth Watt, 46, was absent from the dock when jurors at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday convicted him of brutalising females over a 27year period.

Watt, of Kirkcaldy, had earlier disrupted proceedings by shouting from the dock. This forced judge Lord Brailsford to adjourn his trial for 24 hours.

He then sacked his lawyer and told his new legal representative that he would not be present in court to hear his victims tell the court of how he abused them.

Lord Brailsford then gave permission for the trial to go ahead.

Jurors then heard how he repeatedly physically abused his first victim between 1988 and 1997, repeatedly raping her at locations in his home town.

Watt, who has several previous convictions for dishonesty, then started preying on a girl aged four, subjecting her to violent physical and sexual assaults between 1990 and 1997.

Between June 2004 and June 2007, Watt also repeatedly assaulted another woman. He also raped her in late 2005.

Watt then repeatedly battered another woman between July 2013 and December 2015.

Police then launched an investigation into Watt’s activities and managed to collect enough evidence to arrest him.

But Watt then assaulted Detective Constable Lesley Anne Couper at Kirkcaldy police office in June 2016 before refusing to provide her colleagues with his fingerprints and a DNA sample.

Yesterday, jurors convicted Watt of rape, sexual assault and physical assault charges.

He was also convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice by refusing to comply with police requests to provide them with his fingerprints and DNA.

Watt targeted all his victims at various addresses in Kirkcaldy.

Lord Brailsford deferred sentence for the court to obtain reports.

Watt will be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh on May 16.