Predator who molested four-year-old girl raped and threatened teenager in West Lothian park

A rapist who attacked a teenage girl in a town park during a campaign of sex crime against victims was jailed for seven years today

Sex predator Ross Pullinger grabbed hold of the 15-year-old girl and threatened her during the rape ordeal in Bathgate, in West Lothian.

Pullinger (42) also molested another girl from the age of four and carried out a sex attack on an adult woman at a house in Blackburn, in West Lothian.

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A judge told Pullinger at the High Court in Edinburgh: "Your crimes have had serious effects on your victims."

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Lord Uist said: "You must appreciate that you were convicted of grave sexual offences and these must attract a significant custodial sentence."

The judge jailed Pullinger for a further nine months after he failed to appear for a court hearing in December last year.

He told the rapist that he would be placed on the Sex Offenders' Register indefinitely.

Pullinger, a prisoner in Edinburgh, had earlier denied a string of charges but was found guilty of four sexual offences at an earlier trial at the High Court in Livingston.

He molested one girl at a house in Blackburn when she was aged nine and sexually touched her and got her to touch him during the abuse in 2003.

He later assaulted the same victim again and raped her at the park in Bathgate on an occasion between December 2008 and December the following year.

Pullinger sexually abused a second child at houses in Blackburn beginning in 2003 when she was aged just four.

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He also attacked the adult woman in Blackburn with intent to rape her on an occasion between January 2007 and August the following year when he demanded she have sex with him, pulled her by the legs and tried to take off her trousers.

Defence counsel Niall McCluskey said that Pullinger appreciated that a custodial sentence was "inevitable" following his conviction.

He said that Pullinger was assessed as posing a low to moderate of further sexual offending.

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