Rapist jailed after attacking woman while on bail

A CONVICTED rapist who struck again days after he was freed on bail was given an indeterminate prison sentence today.
Picture: John DevlinPicture: John Devlin
Picture: John Devlin

Alexander Gallagher was out on licence, wearing an electronic tag and under a curfew when he brutalised his latest victim in her home.

Gallagher, 41, repeatedly raped the woman and sexually assaulted her during the attack in March 2013 at her flat in the south side of Glasgow.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He also threatened to kill her and used a carrier bag to gag her in a bid to silence her screams.

Gallagher, who was jailed for 10 years in 2000 after abducting and raping a businesswoman as she waited in her car at traffic lights, was challenged about his latest victim “screaming” during the assault in her home.

But he told his earlier trial: “It was just noises from sex, nothing more. We were having consensual sex.”

Despite his denial Gallagher was convicted of attacking and raping the 34-year-old woman on March 23 2013 following an earlier trial.

She was dragged into a bedroom and thrown on a bed and repeatedly threatened she would be killed and punched on the head during the ordeal.

The victim was left battered and bruised when he later left her home.

Gallagher had been freed on bail five days earlier at Glasgow Sheriff Court. He claimed that he had been at the woman’s home “having a jolly” listening to music before she went to bed.

He said he had joined the woman in the bedroom claiming they became “intimate”. But the victim said she was attacked by the convicted rapist and forced into having sex.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A judge told Gallagher at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You were convicted by the jury of a charge of assaulting, threatening and repeatedly raping a woman.”

Lady Wolffe said: “The evidence disclosed an exceptionally nasty, repeated and prolonged attack upon a victim in her own flat.”

The judge pointed out that the effect on the victim had been “deeply traumatising”.

Lady Wolffe said Gallagher had an extensive record of previous convictions which revealed an increasing propensity for violence and sexual violence.

She said most concerning was his previous conviction in the High Court for rape which had resulted in a 10-year prison term.

The judge told him: “I am in doubt that you present a serious risk of danger to the safety of the community.”

Lady Wolffe said he had been assessed as posing a high risk to the safety of the public and passed an Order for Lifelong Restriction on him.

Under such a sentence the judge fixes a minimum period the offender must serve in prison before he becomes eligible to apply for release on licence.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But the parole authorities will only free the prisoner if they are satisfied it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that he be held in jail.

Lady Wolffe told Gallagher that she would order he serve a minimum period of five years in jail, which she backdated to November 2013.

But the judge told him that he must not assume he will be automatically freed at the end of that period.

She said: “You will be released only when the Parole Board considers it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that you be held in prison.”

Gallagher was also placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.

Gallagher’s pattern of violence has previously seen him jailed in the High Court for assault with intent to rob and assault and robbery.

He had recently been freed from jail for the latter offence when he carried out his first rape in 2000 when he attacked a complete stranger, a 31-year-old mother-of-two, after she stopped her car at a red light in Stirling.

The woman was left screaming in pain during the brutal attack which a judge described as “a truly appalling crime”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Defence solicitor advocate Chris Fyffe said Gallagher had “a troubled and disruptive childhood”.

He said Gallagher had come to realise that there was a need for supervision and support “when ultimately he is released from prison”.

“At the very least there is a change in his attitude to supervision and treatment,” he said.

FOLLOW US

SCOTSMAN TABLET AND MOBILE APPS