Sex attack man gets 12 years

Cross-dresser’s brutal assault in woman’s caravan

A CROSS-DRESSER has been jailed for 12 years after being convicted of a brutal sex attack on a woman at a remote caravan.

Masked Thomas Feeney, 47, from Airdrie, tied up his victim at gunpoint and covered her mouth and eyes with duct tape before subjecting her to a humiliating ordeal.

Minutes before Feeney had forced her to hand over £2,000 in savings and also took the keys to her BMW 3 series car.

Before he left Feeney, who told the court he

You sexually abused her and your defence was preposterous

likes to dress up as a woman, picked up a pink thong and a purple bra from the top of his 33-year-old victim’s laundry bag.

Feeney was found guilty of robbing and sexually assaulting the woman at a static caravan near Shotts, North Lanarkshire, on September 5 last year, with intent to rape.

He was also convicted of using an imitation gun with i ntent to cause the woman to be- lieve unlawful violence would be used against her. The High Court in Glasgow heard that the woman had been staying with her fiance in the remote static caravan while their dream home was being built. The cash was to pay builders’ bills.

The horrific incident ended with him driving off in her car which was later found abandoned.

The court heard that Feeney’s victim is now terrified to be alone as a result of the horrific attack on her.

Judge Norman Ritchie QC told Feeney: “This was a planned crime. You appear to have had some inside information about money within the caravan. You went to the caravan equipped with cable ties, duct tape, an imitation gun and masked and you chose a time when this woman would be on her own.

“You sexually abused her and your defence was preposterous.”

Feeney had claimed that he was framed for the crime by people who had it in for him.

But the jury convicted him unanimously after hearing that his DNA was found in the caravan, which he claimed he had never visited. His DNA matched that found on the woman’s trousers and pants and on duct tape and two cable ties in the caravan.

Feeney was placed on the sex offenders’ register.