Sex abuse victim left ‘sick to stomach’ as cancer-hit attacker is freed from jail after serving just five months
A CHILD sex beast jailed for three years has been released after just five months because he is terminally ill – just like Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Now his victim – nine at the time – says the decision has left her “sick to the stomach” and terrified.
James Ferguson, 65, was jailed for three years in April at Stirling Sheriff Court but only served five months for his vile crime before he was allowed to go home.
His victim, now 16, was horrified when she found he had been allowed to “die with dignity” in the comfort of his own home.
She hit out: “I felt sick to my stomach.
“He should have been left to die in prison. He robbed me of my childhood and I think about what he did to me every day. Sometimes I just want to die.”
Ferguson’s family said they were not obliged to comment.
Ferguson, released last month, begged to be freed because of his cancer after pleading guilty to using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices towards the girl between May 2006 and October 2010.
His solicitor, George Pollok, pleaded for leniency, telling the court Ferguson had no more than a year to live.
But Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said he would be failing in his duty if he did not impose a custodial sentence. The Scottish Prison Service said decisions on compassionate release were based on “individual circumstances.”
Scots Tory justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: “There are plenty of other prisoners not in the best of health and we can’t just open the doors and let them all out.”
Graeme Pearson, Scottish Labour’s justice spokesman, said: “The feelings of victims should be at the heart of these decisions but too often it seems they are treated like an afterthought.”
Last year, we revealed terminally ill child abuser William Burns begged to be released from jail to “die with dignity”.
Burns, caged for abusing young girls, wrote to MP Charles Kennedy, asking the ex-Lib Dem leader to help set him free.
Burns claimed he deserved the same treatment as Megrahi, freed on compassionate grounds in 2009.
Burns, 69, who has throat cancer, begged to spend his final days in his home village of Muir of Ord, Easter Ross.
At least eight prisoners have been granted compassionate release since Megrahi was freed.
A BEAST with just 12 months to live has been jailed for three years for sickening sex attacks on a young girl.
Terminally-ill James Ferguson subjected her to years of vile abuse.
She was just nine when he first targeted her.
Ferguson, 65, has finally been punished for touching the girl indecently.
A sheriff rejected his plea to avoid prison because he has cancer and a relative of the victim said: “This man should be in jail till the day he dies. May he rot in hell.
“He was pleading to get a soft sentence because of his illness. We believe this man was due no mercy.”
Ferguson, from Stirling, pleaded guilty to using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices towards the girl between May 2006 and October 2010.
The extended sentence imposed by Sheriff Wyllie Robertson includes three years of supervision in the community if Ferguson is ever released. The pervert’s solicitor told Stirling Sheriff Court he had been given no more than a year to live
George Pollock added that his client was likely to undergo chemotherapy and pleaded for leniency.
But Sheriff Robertson told Ferguson: “I have given careful consideration to all that Mr Pollock has said, particularly in light of your most recent diagnosis.
“This behaviour was over a sustained period of time and left her with considerable emotional and psychological difficulties.
“The fact it was committed in the way that it was displays a breach of trust, which aggravates the offences.
“In these circumstances I would be failing in my duty, notwithstanding your ill-health, if I did not impose a custodial sentence.”
Ferguson was also put on the sex offenders’ register.
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