Inverness blood lust rapist may spend rest of his life in jail

Hector MacLennan

A BLOOD lust rapist who cut sex attack victims with scissors was today given a life sentence as a judge warned him he might never be freed.

Hector MacLennan (30) carried out a string of brutalising assaults on three teenage girls in the Inverness area over a nine-year period.

Lord Woolman imposed and Order for Lifelong Restriction on the sex attacker at the High Court in Edinburgh and ordered he should serve five years in prison before he can apply for release.

"You will only be released from prison if the Parole Board deems it safe to do so," said the judge, who added: "There is a possibility that you may never be released back into the community."

The judge pointed out that if MacLennan was freed he would be subject to strict conditions and could be recalled to prison if he broke them or offended again.

Lord Woolman said the jury at his trial were satisfied he carried out a catalogue of rapes and assaults against three females between 2000 and 2009.

MacLennan, formerly of Brae Terrace, Munlochy, in Ross-shire, was also convicted of downloading and possessing child pornography, totaling 32 images of girls aged between eight and 14.

The judge said a risk assessment report prepared on MacLennan made "disturbing reading". A psychiatrist had concluded that MacLennan posed a grave risk to the safety of certain women.

Lord Woolman praised a woman, Catherine Lackie, who went to the aid of one of the victims as she tried to escape from MacLennan with her 14-week-old baby. The witness saw the distressed victim and stopped as she drove to work before taking her to an address in the Black Isle.

The judge said she deserved high praise for her conduct and added: "She was truly a Good Samaritan."

A jury who convicted him, despite his denials of the offences, at his earlier trial were told that MacLennan had betrayed "a fascination with blood in the course of sexual activity".

Advocate depute Jennifer Bain said: "Each woman was subjected to alcohol-fuelled aggression resulting in violence for trivial reasons."

MacLennan attacked his first victim at a house in Inverness where she was raped while asleep and after she had awoken, sexually assaulted and punched on the face and body.

A second pregnant victim had a belt tightened round her neck and was threatened she would be killed. She was also cut with a pair of scissors and raped.

The woman was also punched, kicked and slapped and threatened that her eyes would be burnt out with a poker which had been placed in a coal fire.

A third woman was also cut with scissors after her legs were held apart and MacLennan had sex with her. He told her he wanted to "feel blood all over him".

MacLennan also smashed a bottle and held it to the woman's throat during assaults in which she was punched and slapped.

When police arrested MacLennan they found the cache of indecent images of children in his laptop computer.

Lord Woolman viewed a selection of the images in his chambers before returning to court to pass sentence on the rapist.

Defence counsel Frances McMenamin QC said that as far as the charges MacLennan faced "he is still maintaining his innocence".

Miss McMenamin said: "He is well motivated, despite his protestations of innocence, to undertake any courses or any counselling that might be offered to him in prison in order that he can address the problems that he does recognise, he has particularly in relation to certain anger management difficulties and in relation to occasional over indulgence in alcohol."

MacLennan was convicted of two rapes, five assaults and two child pornography offences.

MacLennan's father, 58-year-old Colin MacLennan, of Station Road, Munlochy, was last year given a three-year probation order at Dingwall Sheriff Court for sexually molesting two nine-year-old girls.

News of the crimes of both men shocked residents in the small Black Isle village.