Beast released
Sex attacker Brown subjected Tracy to a horrific campaign of sickening abuse ... now he has been freed from prison just two years into a 10-year sentence
A SEX attacker is back on the streets two years into his 10-year sentence after having part of his conviction quashed.
Duncan Brown, 52, was jailed in 2014 for carrying out a 16-year campaign of abuse on three women.
One victim, his former partner Tracy Steele, 44, bravely told a jury how he had raped, beaten and
subjected her to sadistic emotional abuse over their five-year relationship.
Now she has hit out after he was allowed to walk free from prison after just over two years when his sentence was cut on appeal.
Tracy, who waived her anonymity, blasted the decision, saying: “The system doesn’t care.
“I went through all of that for nothing, I had to relive the worst time of my life for him to just be freed.”
Brown, who had 30 previous convictions, denied everything but the jury at the High Court in Glasgow convicted him of five charges of physical and indecent assault and three charges of rape.
Brown launched an appeal against his convictions and sentence in July 2015 – and appeal judges overturned some of the charges against him.
Brown claimed that the trial judge had misdirected the jury in relating to what constituted “consent”.
Three of Brown’s convictions for rape were overturned on appeal.
Three convictions for assault and two charges of indecent assault against Tracy were upheld.
As a result, Brown’s 10-year sentence was cut to five years and back-dated to September 2013 – allowing him out of jail under early release laws.
Tracy, a former carer for the elderly, said: “I received a letter to say that some of the charges had been dropped and part of conviction overturned.
“I’m disgusted and terrified. I’ve become a recluse, I’m not the same person. The man who made my life a misery is back walking the streets again.”
Mum-of-two Tracy told how Brown ripped out her contraceptive device before indecently assaulting and biting her.
Tracy met Brown in 2000 – and the abuse started soon afterwards. She previously told the Record: “After we’d been seeing each other for a while, he whisked me away for a romantic stay at a hotel – but as soon as we got to bed he changed.
“He ripped my clothes off and bit me on the chest and neck and demanded I have his child and then held me down and ripped out my contraceptive implant.
“There was blood everywhere and I was paralysed with fear as he held it up to me like a trophy and then he raped me.”
Charges that Brown had kept Tracy prisoner for a sex ordeal that lasted 48 hours and forced her to have his name tattooed on her arm were quashed.
But Tracy said: “One weekend, Duncan made me stay in bed for a full 48 hours.
“We didn’t eat. I don’t know how many times he had sex with me but I survived on a few cups of tea. I was there purely for his satisfaction.
“Once he insisted on my having his name tattooed on my arm. The pain of the needle was horrible but I knew it was a lesser pain that I’d face if I refused.”
Tracy says Brown would always find new ways to humiliate her. She added: “One day, I was cleaning his kitchen cupboard when he walked past and kicked the bucket full of bleach into my face. It burned my eyes so badly.
“I should have run but I knew he would kill me if I did.”
Tracy tried to get away from Brown but he hounded her relentlessly.
She said: “He wouldn’t leave me alone. One day he walked in and beat the living daylights out of me like I was a ragdoll.
“During our relationship, I lost count of the beatings and rapes.”
Tracy’s years of abuse ended when Brown vanished out of her life with no warning.
Then in August 2013, police contacted Tracy after two other victims came forward.
Sentencing him, judge Kenneth Maciver said he had no respect for his victims, who he terrorised between 1996 and 2012.
Last night, a spokesman for the Crown said that during the preparation for a retrial, essential evidence was no longer available. But they added that proceedings can be re-raised at any time if the position on evidence changes.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Sentencing decisions in each individual case are determined by the courts, which are best placed to decide on an appropriate sentence for each offender before them.
“We will shortly introduce legislation creating a criminal offence of domestic abuse that will include psychological abuse, which can be difficult to deal with under existing laws.” Since Brown was
During the time I was with him, I lost count of the rapes and the beatings TRACY STEELE
convicted, the automatic right to early release after serving two-thirds of a sentence in Scotland has been scrapped.
Under new laws, which came into force last month, cons serving four years or more who don’t require supervision after release will be freed six months before the end of their sentence.
Serious offenders who must be supervised on release will have to serve the whole of their jail term. But that won’t apply to lags like Brown, who was jailed before the new laws came in.