Serial sex predator is jailed for 10 years

A SEX predator who preyed on a string of children for more than a decade has been jailed for 10 years.

A judge yesterday told James MacLachlan that he was guilty of a “grave course of conduct”.

The abuse took place between 1989 and 2001 in the Western Isles.

The 49 year-old former fish farm worker was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow.

MacLachlan, of

South Uist, had earlier been convicted of raping a 14 year-old girl and sexually abusing another around the same age. A third was as young as seven when she was attacked while two boys – one just six – were also targeted.

Lord Beckett told MacLachlan: “This was a grave course of conduct and unusually depraved sexual abuse. It has had a profound effect on the victims – one tells me in articulate and agonising detail how badly damaged her life has been.”

MacLachlan – who continues to protest his innocence – will also be supervised for four years on his release. BUSINESS at a Scottish court has been cancelled for a whole week – because the sheriff is going on summer holiday.

Tain Sheriff Court was due to see summary trials begin next Tuesday and Wednesday.

But they have had to be cancelled until further notice because the court’s regular sheriff is on leave and a replacement wasn’t asked for.

A spokesman for the Scottish Courts and