Evil sex predator guilty of string of offences against women

Sex predator Edward Hunter woke up the mother by touching her sexually after staying over at her home in Sauchie, in Clackmannanshire, and then turned his attention to the teenage girl in the early hours of the morning.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that after the mother found out about the abuse she had confronted Hunter and said: “How could you touch the bairn?”

Hunter (42), Westerton Terrace, Carronshore, had been freed on bail months earlier by a sheriff in Stirling, facing serious charges against other victims, when he sexually assaulted the mother and daughter on January 8 this year.

He denied a string of charges during a trial but today was found guilty of ten offences of rape, sexual assault, indecency and assault, committed against four victims between 2003 and this year, by a jury.

Hunter told jurors: “I never touched any of them. I am not that sort of person. I don’t agree with it. It’s disgusting.”

One woman was assaulted and raped by Hunter at her home in a small Stirlingshire village and he also targeted a child relative of the victim from the age of 12 for sexual abuse and rape from the age of 13.

The child victim, who is now aged 22, said she had been sleeping at the house when Hunter came in and began touching her legs and buttocks.

She said: “I didn’t tell anybody else. When I was younger something like this had happened and nobody had believed me.”

She said: “On other occasions he would touch me on my clothes and under my clothes. If I was pretending to be asleep I would roll or move away.”

“I told him to stop a few times. I don’t know how many. One time he was saying it wouldn’t hurt. Another time he was telling me not to tell anybody,” she told the court.

“As time went on he would lead me down to the living room. He put me on the sofa and had sex with me,” the tearful woman said. She added: “He said it wouldn’t hurt.”

She said she believed it had happened to her more than four times.

Advocate depute Kath Harper asked the woman if Hunter had asked her if she wanted to have sex and she replied: “No”. The prosecutor asked if he had given her any choice and she said: “No.”

The woman said she later visited her relative who had been raped by Hunter and the older woman had mentioned that he had been accused of sexual assault.

She said: “I had said that I knew about the things she was saying. I guess I knew because it happened to me. She asked me more questions.”

“We both got quite upset and I went to the bathroom and when I came back she told me she had been in the garden and she had phoned the police and they were on their way to talk to me,” she said.

Defence Lorraine Glancy said after the jury verdict: “Standing the serious nature of the charges the accused has now been convicted of a custodial sentence is inevitable.”

The judge, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, deferred sentence on Hunter for the preparation of a background report. Hunter, who was on bail throughout the trial, was remanded in custody. He was placed on the sex offenders’ register.