At least six years for serial rapist

A SERIAL rapist and sex offender branded a danger to women was yesterday given a lifelong restriction order .

Jamaican Chan Wright, who struck in areas including Angus, was ordered by judge Lord Kinclaven to serve at least six years and it was recommended that he be deported.

An earlier attempt was made to deport Wright (40), who has a previous conviction for rape, but in 2007 three judges ruled that it would be “irrational and not justified” to do so.

Yesterday, as Wright was sentenced, two of his victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, condemned the decision not to deport him earlier.

One of his victims, aged 33, said: “I feel let down by the system. Here was a man convicted of rape and threatened with deportation who appealed and three Court of Session judges allowed him to remain in Scotland.

“A great many people would have been saved from a lot of misery had he been deported then.

“I was completely unaware that he had previously been convicted of rape.

“In 2005 he was challenging a deportation threat by immigration officials but I was completely unaware of his background.

“The trial was a real ordeal, having to recount the trauma I had experienced plus discovering his physical and sexual assaults on other women.”

Another of his victims, aged 38, said: “I can look back now and see that a lot of pain could have been saved had he been deported.”

Wright was convicted last September of raping and assaulting three women and indecently assaulting two girls.

The offences were committed in Edinburgh, West Lothian, Angus and Aberdeenshire.

He continues to deny all the rapes and sexual assaults.

The verdicts in these cases came four years after Court of Session judges stopped him from being deported. Wright had already served four years for raping a teenager in Livingston in 1995.

A risk assessment report prepared by forensic psychologist Stephen Evan following Wright’s conviction concluded that he would pose a “high risk” of re-offending if released.

Mr Evans said that Wright was also abused as a child. He added: “There are issues from his childhood which are clearly unresolved.

“Until these issues are resolved Mr Wright is likely to continue to be a risk to women.”

An immigration tribunal decided the rapist and cocaine trafficker posed a high risk of committing further sex and drugs offences, but Lord Johnston, sitting with Lord Eassie and Lord Wheatley, said its conclusion was “irrational and not justified”.

Wright, who has personality characteristics similar to those of a psychopath — he is unable to understand his victims’ pain and suffering — raped and brutalised

“You present a high risk... of violence and sexual violence.”

Lord Kinclaven

the women over a 15-year period.

Experts say that if he is ever released he will need to be monitored around the clock by the authorities.

Yesterday Lord Kinclaven told Wright: “It is my opinion if at liberty you present a high risk to the public of violence and sexual violence. You are a risk to women.”

Wright’s legal team argued that it would be a breach of his human rights if he were to be handed a life sentence and said that he had had a “wretched childhood in Jamaica”.

Wright, who was placed on the sex offenders register, showed no emotion as he was led away to begin his sentence.

Jamaican Chan Wright could be deported after he has served his sentence.