Evidence of dead victim helps convict rapist who preyed on prostitutes

● Nine-year term for attacks on two women deemed ‘predatory’ offences

A rapist who targeted prostitutes was jailed for nine years yesterday after evidence from a victim who has since died was used to help convict him.

One of Kenneth Williamson’s victims asked him if he was going to kill her after he raped her, and another feared she was going to die.

Williamson, 33, abducted the two women after picking them up from streets in Dundee and Edinburgh and subjected them to terrifying ordeals.

A judge at the High Court in Edinburgh told him that his crimes were “predatory” offences committed against vulnerable victims.

Lord Turnbull said: “Each victim was subjected to a violent sexual assault involving abusive and humiliating conduct.”

Williamson, a married father of three, first struck on 5 January last year after picking up a woman in Dundee’s Arbroath Road.

He went on to carry out a similar attack on the second woman, who had been working in the Leith area of Edinburgh, three months later on 6 or 7 April.

He had earlier

denied assaulting and raping the two women during a trial, but was found guilty of both offences after a jury heard evidence including statements from one of the victims, who has since died at the age of 36.

His first victim, aged 35, told the court that it was only her second night working on the streets when Williamson pulled up in his van and asked her if she was looking for business.

She said she agreed to perform a sex act on him for £40 and got into the vehicle.

She told advocate depute Graeme Jessop: “He said to me he had somewhere to take me.

“I told him to stay in the city. But he kept on driving and driving further out of Dundee. I was really, really worried by what he was doing. I had no idea where I was.”

She said Williamson eventually stopped at a field somewhere outside the city.

“He was very intimidating. I was scared of him. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what he was going to do to me.

“I asked him to stop and not to do anything.”

She said he then refused to let her out the van, and grabbed her by the hair, forced her into the rear of the vehicle and made her take off clothing.

She said her head was repeatedly struck off the floor and she was raped.

After the attack he drove back to Dundee and the woman said she was forced out of the moving van.

She said: “He just threw me out the vehicle.”

After identifying her attacker in court, the woman started to cry and then said: “He’s ruined my life.”

The second victim, who has since died, gave details of the attack on her to police at the time.

She got into a car in a street near Leith police station while she was working as a prostitute. The attack then took place at Levenhall Links leisure park at Musselburgh, East Lothian.