Rape victims ‘let down by the system’

VICTIMS of serial rapist Chan Wright today said they had been “let down by the system” after the sex offender was jailed for life.

Wright, a Jamaican immigrant, was yesterday ordered to serve at least six years, with a judge recommending he should be deported on release.

The 40-year-old was convicted last September of raping and assaulting three women and indecently assaulting two girls in Edinburgh, West Lothian, Angus and Aberdeenshire over a 15-year period.

The verdicts came four years after judges rejected the chance to deport him for an earlier rape.

Wright had served a four-year jail sentence for raping a teenager in Livingston, in 1995 when an immigration tribunal found he posed a high risk of committing further sex and drugs offences, but Lord Johnston, sitting with Lord Eassie and Lord Wheatley, ruled it would have been “irrational and not justified” to deport him.

Two of his victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, today hit out at the 2007 Court of Session move.

One 33-year-old woman said: “I feel let down by the system. Here was a man convicted of rape and threatened with deportation and three Court of Session judges allowed him to remain in Scotland.

“A great many people would have been saved from a lot of misery had he been deported then.”

Another victim, aged 38, said: “I can look back now and see that a lot of pain could have been saved had he been deported.”

Wright, who has personality characteristics similar to a psychopath, continues to deny attacking the women.

Experts say if he is ever released, he will need to be monitored round the clock by the authorities.

The Jamaican immigrant, who is also a convicted drug dealer, is unable to understand his victims’ pain and suffering.

The High Court in Edinburgh was previously told of a risk assessment report prepared by forensic psychologist Stephen Evans following Wright’s conviction which concluded that he would pose a “high risk” of reoffending if released.

Wright’s legal team had argued that it would be a breach of his human rights if he were to be handed a life sentence and said that he had endured a “wretched childhood in Jamaica”.

Judge Lord Kinclaven told him: “It is my opinion if at liberty you present a high risk to the public.”

Wright, who was also placed on the sex offenders register, showed no emotion as he was led away to begin his sentence.