January 2010

Man jailed for raping young girl

A convicted sex offender who raped a girl and abused her sister while staying at their home in Ayrshire has been jailed for seven years.

Stewart Cuthill admitted carrying out the attacks on the 11 and 15-year-olds between 2005 and 2006 in Kilwinning.

The 57-year-old was jailed in 2007 for having sex with a 15 year-old girl.

At the High Court in Glasgow Judge Bill Dunlop ordered Cuthill to be placed on a lifelong restriction order and the sex offenders’ register.

The court heard how Cuthill regularly stayed overnight at the home the victims.

He forcibly had sex with the youngest girl, then aged 11 or 12, on a day between May 2005 and July 2006.

Cuthill later told the girl that if she told anyone, no one would believe her.

He also carried out two sex attacks on the girl’s sister in 2005 when she was 15.

After the first incident, she put her bed against a door to keep him away but he later forced her to perform a sex act.

Both girls separately told their mother about the attacks.

But it emerged in court that she was too drunk to understand and later told one of her daughters to “keep her mouth shut”.

Public danger

It was only when they went to another relative for help that police intervened and Cuthill was arrested.

Passing sentence, judge Dunlop told Cuthill that he was a “predator”.

He added: “You may not engage in random acts, but you instead prey on those whose trust you have cultivated.

“I have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that there is a likelihood that you will endanger the lives of members of the public at large.”