A cry for justice
A rapist applies for parole - just three and a half years into an 8-year sentence. And now his terrif ied victim is forced to beg for him to be kept behind bars. Her letter is one of the most moving things you will ever read ... and a scathing condemnatio
A YOUNG rape victim is campaigning to prevent her brutal attacker from being freed from jail less than half way into his sentence. Career criminal Adrian Ruddock was given eight years for repeatedly raping his victim, leaving her severely injured and traumatised.
Yet, in a case that highlights how Scotland’s ‘soft-touch’ justice system is failing victims, he is being allowed to formally demand his freedom only three and a half years into his sentence.
Next month the rapist will appear before the Parole Board and ask to be let out of prison.
But, warning that Ruddock is a danger to woman, his furious victim has written a powerful letter to the board demanding that he be kept in jail to serve his sentence.
Despite her appalling ordeal, Sarah Scott has waived her legal
‘Being raped is a life sentence’
right to anonymity and is working to improve the way the justice system handles rape cases.
The 23-year-old has agreed to share her letter with The Scottish Mail on Sunday to expose the incredible leniency of the system.
She said: ‘He was sentenced to eight years plus three years extended in the community. He was also judged a medium risk of reoffending and a high risk of harm. He has never taken responsibility for what he did. I’m furious, not just for me, but for other women he could pose a threat to.
‘It’s wrong that sex offenders should be allowed to serve only 50 per cent of their sentence, and it’s even more wrong if they are allowed to demand their freedom after serving even less than half their time.’
Criminals sentenced to more than four years get automatic release after serving two-thirds of their term, but they are entitled to apply to the Parole Board for release after serving just half of their sentence.
Ruddock, however, is being allowed to go before the board less than three and a half years after he was sentenced to eight years. Even if his sentence is considered to have begun when he was put into custody after the offence, he is still being allowed to seek parole well before completing half his jail term.
Scottish Tory justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said last night: ‘The SNP has been in power since 2007 and has done nothing to improve the situation for victims of serious crime. We believe the sentence given should be the sentence served.’
Scottish Labour justice spokesman Graeme Pearson, said: ‘The current system is not in the interests of victims, dragging them back into the process and failing to reflect the “victim-centred” system promised by this SNP Government.’
Miss Scott was raped in December 2010 at a grubby Aberdeen flat where Ruddock, 41, was living.
He knew one of her sister’s friends and after a chance meeting with Miss Scott in a bar he claimed that her sister and others were at a party in his flat. After luring her inside he launched his horror attack. Miss Scott feared she would die and only managed to escape when the rapist fell asleep. Despite being driven to attempt suicide twice as she waited for the case to get to court, she refused to give evidence from behind a screen, insisting that she wanted to face Ruddock. He was sentenced in May 2011.
Miss Scott is now a respected campaigner and last year met with Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to outline her concerns about the treatment of rape victims in court.
Last night she said: ‘It infuriates me that he is allowed to read my submission to the Parole Board – human rights, of course. So it posed a dilemma for me. I wanted to ask that he stays away from the town I live in, but I’d have to include my address. In the end I left it out.
‘It’s really unfair that he gets to know that his actions still have such a massive impact on my life. It’s revictimisation. Being raped is a life sentence, yet the rapist can be sentenced to eight years and be looking forward to freedom having done less than four. Where’s the justice?’
A Parole Board spokesman said: ‘We don’t discuss individual cases, but if release on parole is approved by the board it takes place on the qualifying date and not before.’
THERE can be no starker illustration of the farcical state of Scotland’s soft-touch justice system than the case of Adrian Ruddock, a brutal career criminal who repeatedly raped 19-year-old Sarah Scott.
In May 2011, he was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment plus three years’ supervision in the community. Now, less than three and a half years later, he has applied to the Parole Board for release.
The system that allows serious criminals to apply for release after serving just half their sentence has been condemned as too lenient many times in the past; in this case the system has gone even further by allowing a dangerous rapist to demand freedom at an even earlier stage of his supposed punishment. What message does this send to his victim? Miss Scott, despite severe physical injuries and psychological trauma, bravely chose to face her attacker in court to see him jailed.
Now she has been forced to write to the authorities to spell out the obvious truth that Ruddock, if released, poses a clear danger to her and to other women.
If this violent rapist is released having served just half his sentence, it will be a cruel mockery of justice.