Judge promises child rapist,aged 82, lengthy sentence

A FORMER army boxer turned rapist could die in jail after being found guilty of a catalogue of depraved and sadistic offences against children.

A trial heard that Thomas Riley’s physical and sexual abuse included threatening to nail a girl’s hand to a door after “rambling about Jesus”.

He also tied her to a clothes pole and threw lighted matches at the terrified girl – telling her if she had been born 200 years earlier she would have been burned as a witch.

He also raped her at a house in Edinburgh.

At the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, judge Lord Pentland promised Riley, 82, who suffers serious health problems, a long prison sentence.

The judge told him: “You stand convicted of a catalogue of despicable crimes.”

A jury found Riley, of Moredun Park Gardens, Edinburgh, guilty of a total of 12 charges dating back to the mid-1960s. He will be sentenced next month.