Scottish judges urged to impose tougher sentences on rapists

Scotland’s top law officer has asked judges to create tougher sentencing guidelines for rape cases.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC made the request after arguing “unduly lenient” punishments have been handed out.

She made her submission at Edinburgh’s Court of Criminal Appeal, where the cases of three sex offenders are being considered.

The Scottish Sentencing Council is currently working on its own guidance for such cases.

Ms Bain, who leads Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), asked judges Lady Dorrian, Lord Pentland and Lord Matthews to provide guidelines for their colleagues on Thursday.

She has gone to the court in the hope of persuading judges to impose lengthier sentences on three men who were recently convicted of rape.

The request would not “hinder nor “impede” the work of the Sentencing Council, the Lord Advocate told the court.

She argued the sentences imposed on three violent sex offenders were too lenient.

Luke Bertorelli, a 23-year-old of of Dunfermline, Fife, was jailed for 45 months after admitting 11 offences, including three charges of rape, sexual assault, assault and abusive behaviour.

He photographed his sexual abuse of one drunk woman and after finding out he had been reported to police, told a victim: “If they come asking you questions, don’t say a fing word. I’ll pay you.”

Jamie Ironside, 38, was sentenced to four years for violent sexual offences in Inverness, while John Todd, 34, was jailed for five years and 10 months for crimes in Perth, Angus and Fife.

Ms Bain told the court that Bertorello’s trial judge, Lord Sandison, had failed to take into account all of the circumstances surrounding his offending.

She said the judge had “misdirected himself” by characterising the rapist’s behaviour as immature, selfish and “childish.

A court-appointed social worker had found Bertorelli felt he was able to take control of women and take “revenge” against them. He felt entitled to have sex with women and had misogynistic and “patriarchal attitudes, according to the social worker.

Ms Bain told the appeal court: “[Lord Sandison] seems to have misunderstood what the impact of Mr Bertorelli’s behaviour has been on the complainers in the case.

“He has failed to understand the nature of this type of offending.

“I look at the errors of the trial judge and I say it results in an unduly lenient sentence.”

Bertorelli’s counsel, Donald Findlay KC, argued the sentence was not unduly lenient.

He said his client had also been the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, “which will regulate him for the rest of his life”.

The senior advocate urged the appeal judges not to pass guidelines in relation to sexual offences.

“It is not what this court is designed to do,” he told the judges. “We have a sentencing council for that purpose.”

Lady Dorrian said the court’s decision “will be issued in due course”.

Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Jamie Greene said the Lord Advocate was “quite right to call out these woefully-lenient sentences”, which he said were “an insult to their traumatised victims”.

He added: “Sentencing guidelines must be toughened to act as a stronger deterrent and to recognise victims’ suffering.”