Man found guilty of trying to murder pregnant women

It took a jury four-and-a-half hours to convict James Paterson of a catalogue of horrific attacks at addresses in Fife and Edinburgh.

He was found guilty of ten out of 11 charges against him today at the High Court in Aberdeen, where he had been on trial for six days.

Paterson’s first victim, 22, previously broke down in tears as she told the court how he tried to set her on fire with a deodorant can, raped her, stabbed her in the hand with a pen knife and turned her into a “nervous wreck”.

His second victim, 20, also wept as she described how she was repeatedly “strangled” by him, raped and was kicked in the stomach when she was expecting a baby.

The mother said she still has Paterson’s teeth marks in her arm after he bit her more than two years ago.

His third victim said Paterson jumped up and down on her baby bump “like it was a trampoline”.

The tearful 23-year-old also told the court he had choked her three times until she lost consciousness during a string of violent incidents which started when she was between four and five months pregnant.

The trial also heard Paterson had sent a series of threatening text messages to the woman, one claiming he would “slit her fat face wide open”.

All three women, who can not be named for legal reasons, told how Paterson choked them, two of them until they blacked out.

Paterson, 23, was also convicted of severely injuring a baby boy and endangering his life.

He repeatedly threw the infant against a headboard, stopped his mother from tending to him, dropped him on the floor, bound him tightly in a blanket and rolled him into a cot so he banged his head and body on the bars.

The violence started the day the baby was born.

Dr Alastair Wilkinson, a radiologist at the Royal Hospital of Sick Children in Edinburgh, said two broken ribs revealed during X-rays carried out on the child when he was four months old were consistent with an adult squeezing him with “all their might”.

Paterson was found not guilty of a second charge of assault against a baby, which alleged he dragged the boy across a bed by his arm.

All of his offences date from between January 2006 and July last year.

At the start of the trial Paterson lodged a string of special defences. He claimed his first two victims had consented to sex and claimed self defence in relation to his second and third victim.

He further lodged a special defence of incrimination against his third alleged victim, claiming she was responsible for injuring her own baby.

The trial heard from Paterson’s own mother Maxine, 45, who said she saw her son “fly at” one of the victims and pull the hair of another and drag her to a car.

Paterson showed no emotion when he was convicted and was led away in handcuffs.

Lord Bannatyne deferred sentence for reports until next month at the High Court in Glasgow.