Sex attack on girl (4) in Grangemouth house

William McArthur (36) encouraged a woman to send him topless pictures as his young victim lay in a critical condition in hospital.

McArthur inflicted numerous injuries on the four-year-old victim of the attempted murder and horrifically sexually abused her during a catalogue of crimes against women and children committed between 2014 and last year.

A judge told McArthur that he had demonstrated that he was “a serious danger to any women and children with whom you come into contact”.

Lord Uist said: “The crimes which you committed on the four year old girl were ones of unspeakable, indeed incomprehensible, evil.

“Your treatment of her and the injuries you inflicted on her were quite horrific,” he told McArthur at the High Court in Edinburgh.

The judge told him that he was imposing imprisonment on him for an indeterminate period under an Order for Lifelong Restriction.

He ordered that McArthur must serve a minimum jail term of seven years before he becomes eligible to apply for parole.

But Lord Uist warned: “You must not assume you will be automatically released at the end of that period.”

He said McArthur would only be released when it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that he continue to be confined in prison.

McArthur (35) raped a woman and a teenager and sexually assaulted another woman as well as committing acts of violence against three children.

His youngest victim, the four-year-old girl, suffered significant head and stomach injuries that doctors suspected were non-accidental, inflicted trauma.

The child also sustained damage to her genitals including an injury one doctor had never previously seen in her career.

A jury was shown pictures of the little murder victim lying sedated and intubated in hospital following the horrifying assaults on her committed between October 2017 and January last year.

The court heard that the former West Lothian college student was previously jailed for 27 months for carrying out assaults on three different women.

Lord Uist earlier told jurors at McArthur’s trial that they had to deal with a “most distasteful and distressing case” and added: “This is not a case anyone would have volunteered to become involved in.”

He had denied a series of charges but was convicted of nine crimes.

He was found guilty of assaulting and raping a 29-year-old woman in June and July 2014 at a village near Dumfries.

During the attacks McArthur (35) grabbed her and pushed her onto a bed, pulled her hair and forced her legs apart during sexual assaults.

He was also convicted of attacking a six-year-old girl on an occasion between March 1 and July 30 in 2014 at a caravan in the Dumfriesshire village by threatening her with violence and brandishing a knife at her.

McArthur was also found guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl at a house in Grangemouth after she had been drinking and was sick in November in 2017. He pulled down her pyjama bottoms before carrying out the sex attack.

In the murder bid on the four-year-old girl he assaulted her on various occasions between October in 2017 and January last year by seizing hold of her, striking her with an unknown object and inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and body to her severe injury and the danger of her life.

The offences occurred at a house in Grangemouth and at McArthur’s home address at Birkenshaw Way, Armadale, in West Lothian.

He also sexually assaulted the child during the same period by seizing hold of her, forcing her legs apart and inflicting blunt force trauma to her vagina by “means to the prosecutor unknown” and sexually penetrating her with a body part and or object.

McArthur was also convicted of sexually assaulting a 40-year-old woman at an address in Grangemouth who was asleep when he first began the attack in December in 2017.

McArthur admitted a further two charges of stalking young mothers he met through the Badoo dating website before his trial began. One 28-year-old was bombarded with messages from him and repeatedly asked him to leave her alone.

He asked the woman, who found his behaviour creepy and intimidating, for pictures of her daughter.

He also bombarded a 21-year-old mother with messages and became abusive and aggressive towards her.

During the trial prosecutor Jo McDonald told the jury that McArthur was aware that the four-year-old was on life support and was going to be transferred from Forth Valley Royal Hospital at Larbert to the sick kids hospital in Edinburgh but was texting a female acquaintance asking her to send topless pics.

McArthur had on occasions taken the youngster to the toilet and also claimed that she had suffered falls. He would tell the child’s mother that she needed a break while he attended to the little girl.

The woman said that at one stage she wanted to take her to the doctor but McArthur, who told her he was trained in first aid, convinced her that she would be okay and that he knew what he was talking about.

She said that McArthur also put make-up on the little girl’s bruised face to cover up injuries.

The child’s grandmother met him once and had an argument with him. She told the court: “He was a bully.”

McArthur’s defence counsel Donald Findlay QC urged the judge to deal with him by imposing a determinate sentence followed by a period of supervision.

He said: “He is not a man with with an inherently dangerous criminal past. There are clearly issues of dealing with women and children that he has to address.”

McArthur was told he would be on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.