Firef ighter who rescued girl, 9, raped her only a few hours later
A FIREFIGHTER raped a schoolgirl just hours after he helped to rescue her and her mother from a blaze.
John McGinn attacked the nine-year- old then ordered her to keep quiet or he would kill her mother.
A jury heard how McGinn, 56, also raped and abused a woman he once dated leaving her feeling like ‘a piece of garbage’.
McGinn – who went on to batter another young girl – branded the allegations ‘downright lies’.
He told detectives: ‘I would rather put a bullet in my own head than be a paedophile.’
But he was convicted of six charges – including rape as well as lewd and libidinous conduct – after a trial at the High Court in Glasgow in June.
McGinn was back in the dock yesterday to be sentenced, but the case was adjourned again until later this month.
The firefighter of more than 30 years was based mainly in North Lanarkshire and joined colleagues in battling a blaze at the rape victim’s home in Bellshill in 1994.
McGinn knew the child and her family, having lived in the same area. The youngster’s mother was taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation while the nine - year- ol d went to her grandmother’s house.
McGinn later turned up at the house and it was there that he pounced on the traumatised child.
While alone he pulled the girl on top of him, placed his hand over her mouth and told her it would be ‘okay’. The victim – now 30 – said: ‘I told him to stop. He said if I told anyone he would kill my mother.’
McGinn – who also worked as a bouncer – was held by police almost 20 years later after the woman plucked up the courage to report her ordeal.
But brazen McGinn insisted the rape was not true and the victim was ‘not a very nice person’. He told detectives: ‘It’s a downright lie – it did not happen.
‘I would rather put a bullet in my own head than be a paedophile. Hanging is too good for a paedophile.’
McGinn claimed the victim had previously tried to blackmail him as she knew he had a lucrative pension. He claimed the rape claim was ‘payback’ for not giving her money.
But the jury was also told that a another woman had also suffered at McGinn’s hands.
The 50-year-old victim branded the retired firefighter ‘a monster’. They started dating in the mid1980s when the woman was 16.
The pair lived together but the woman said controlling McGinn made her life a misery, telling her what to wear and giving her ‘pocket money’ to spend.
She confided i n McGinn’s mother, but was told: ‘If he is lifting his hands to you then you must be doing something to deserve it.’
She told the court that she was repeatedly raped by McGinn.
But, on one occasion, the victim snapped after he had tied her to a bed and sexually assaulted her.
She told the jury: ‘I was crying. I was saying no.’
On being freed, she grabbed a knife and chased burly McGinn.
She said: ‘I would have put the knife right through his heart if I had caught up with him, but he ran and ran.’
The woman also described how McGinn made her petrified to turn on a light in her house after they split.
She told the trial: ‘ He said he would put petrol in the lightbulbs and they would explode.’
The woman said she lit candles instead and turned it into a game so as not to scare her children.
The jury heard that McGinn also assaulted another young girl and later bribed her to keep quiet by giving her sweets.
Judge Lord Bonomy t old McGinn in June that he faces a ‘lengthy’ prison sentence for a ‘monstrous catalogue of physical and sexual abuse’.
‘He said he would kill my mother’