The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Rapist sentenced to eight years in jail for campaign of cruelty
Offender used threats and violence to control women
A rapist who carried out a campaign of cruelty and control against women was jailed for eight years yesterday.
Thomas Gordon carried out sex attacks on two women and showed “utter indifference” to a victim’s protests.
The heavy gambler got money out of a third woman and threatened to send topless pictures of her to colleagues and to post them online during a stalking campaign.
He read her private information in messages and emails and contacted her family and sent her employer malicious messages about her.
A judge told Gordon at the High Court in Edinburgh that he had been convicted of charges involving “a course of controlling, abusive and threatening conduct” against three victims which included assault and rape.
Lady Scott said he presented a danger to women and added: “All of your victims have been badly damaged by your conduct.”
Gordon, 54, formerly of Allen Grove, Comrie, in Fife, had earlier denied a string of charges but was found guilty of two offences of rape and further crimes of assault and threatening and offensive behaviour.
The crimes were committed at addresses in Comrie and at a park in Aberdour between 2010 and 2016.
One woman told jurors that after she was raped by him and in pain and discomfort he seemed to find it funny.
A nurse, who was also raped by Gordon, said she had tried to push him away and told him “no, it was too sore” but he just giggled during her ordeal.
One woman who met Gordon online discovered that he was “very paranoid” and would accuse her falsely of cheating on him.
A 44-year-old woman, who was twice raped by Gordon, said he had made her give up her job and that he accused her of sleeping with a man she merely had a chat with.
She said: “He took my phone away from me so I didn’t have any numbers. I lost contact with my family because of him.
“I knew he just didn’t want me to be in contact with any males,” she said.
At one stage she went to a women’s refuge that helped sort out her finances but she went back to him.
It was arranged for her money to go into his bank account, but she said: “A lot of the time I didn’t get the money because he is a big, big gambler. I had to rely on him for everything.”
“He had this obsession. He used to question me constantly, asking me really disgusting sexual things,” she said.
“He would blow up, absolutely blow up. He would scream at me that loud that his voice used to break up,” she told the court.
She said Gordon, who worked for a kitchen and bathroom fitting firm, attacked her on one occasion and grabbed her head and dragged her down stairs and threw her out of a house.
“He grabbed me like a piece of trash. I couldn’t believe what he had done, but I should have known. When his pupils went big he was going to kick off, an evil look on his face. His temper was horrendous,” she said.
The woman said that the first time he raped her he had ignored her pleas that it was sore. She said: “He knew I didn’t want it.”
The 46-year-old nurse met Gordon through the Plenty of Fish dating site and at first found him to be charming, but that changed.
“He would say things like ‘you have slept with this person’,” she said, adding that he would become verbally aggressive, standing over her and shouting at her while she was crying.
Defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin told the court: “He continues to deny his guilt.”
Gordon was earlier put on the sex offenders register.
He would blow up, absolutely blow up. He would scream at me that loud that his voice used to break up