Rapist who targeted prostitutes jailed for nine years

A rapist who preyed on women working as prostitutes was jailed for nine years today after evidence from a dead victim was used to help convict him.

Williams was sentenced at Edinburgh High Court.

One of Kenneth Williamson’s victims asked him if he was going to kill her after he raped her and another feared she was going to die.

Williamson (33) abducted the two women after picking them up from streets in Dundee and Edinburgh and subjected them to terrifying ordeals.

A judge told him at the High Court in Edinburgh that his crimes were “predatory” offences committed against vulnerable victims.

Lord Turnbull said: “Each victim was subjected to a violent sexual assault involving abusive and humiliating conduct.”

Williamson first struck on January 5 last year after picking up a woman in Dundee’s Arbroath Road and went on to carry out a similar attack on the second woman who had been working in the Leith area of Edinburgh three months later on April 6 or 7.

He had earlier denied assaulting and raping the two women during a trial but was found guilty of both offences after a jury heard statements from one of the victims who has since died at the age of 36.

His first victim, aged 35, told the court that it was only her second night on the streets when Williamson pulled up in his van and asked her if she was looking for business.

She said she agreed to perform a sex act on him for £40 and got in the vehicle. She told advocate depute Graeme Jessop: “He said to me he had somewhere to take me.”

“I told him to stay in the city. But he kept on driving and driving further out of Dundee. I was really, really worried by what he was doing. I had no idea where I was,” she said.

She said Williamson stopped at a field somewhere outside the city. “He was very intimidating. I was scared of him. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what he was going to do to me. I asked him to stop and not to do anything,” she said.

He refused to let her out the van and grabbed her by the hair and forced her into the rear of the vehicle and made her take off clothing.

She said her head was repeatedly struck off the floor and she was raped. She said: “I thought I was going to die. I thought he was going to kill me.”

After the attack he drove back to Dundee and the woman said she was forced out the still moving van. She said: “He just threw me out the vehicle.”

After identifying her attacker in court the woman started to cry and then said: “He’s ruined my life.”

The court heard that after the attack on the first victim the woman she was staying with at the time found her in a hysterical state with one boot on.

She said: “I actually heard her before I saw her. I heard the screaming in the close. I thought ‘oh my god, oh my god’ and I ran out.”

“She says to me she had just been raped and I started screaming as well.”

The second victim, who has died, gave details of the attack on her to police at the time.

She said had been in a street near Leith police station working as a prostitute when a car appeared and believed the driver was looking to pick her up.

She got into the car and was taken to Levenhall Links leisure park at Musselburgh, in East Lothian, near to the race course.

She said Williamson got out of the vehicle and removed all his clothing and she got in the rear of the vehicle by climbing over the seats. She said she removed some of her clothing and then asked the suspect if they could agree a payment before any sexual contact took place.

She was told he would pay afterwards and she tried to get out then as she wanted the money first, but was grabbed by the hair and pushed face down and told “Do what I want and I won’t be violent”. She said “Please let me go.”

She told police that he told her to get a condom and she did what he said and he put it on and took the wrapper. He then told her to perform oral sex on him and she complied because she was scared.

She took off most of her clothes and was told to lie down and he had intercourse with her. He said to her: “What’s wrong with you. You look like a scared little bunny rabbit.”

He asked her for a second condom. She told the man she needed to go to the toilet but he initially refused to let her. Her plan had been to grab hold of her clothes and flee.

She said she managed to get one foot out the door but the man grabbed hold of her wrist tightly and when she asked him why he told so that she did not run away. The woman said she forced herself to urinate while he hold onto her wrist.

She climbed back into the car and he locked the doors. She asked if they could go but he told her: “What did I tell you. Keep me happy, be a good girl and I won’t get violent” He then told her to perform oral sex on him and she complied,

The woman said he grabbed her hair and threw her forward over the front seats and despite her protestations he raped her again.

She told police that she was upset and crying and that she said ‘No, I don’t do that. Stop it. Please, you are hurting me’. She said that he did not stop and he said ‘Shout ‘no’. Tell me to stop. Shout ‘no’.”

She said afterwards he told her to get dressed and he also get dressed. She asked him to leave her there but he told her no. He put items back in the car and she saw a shovel.

She asked him “Are you going to kill me now?” She said he laughed. She asked him to take her back to where he picked her up.

The woman told police that during the journey he was talking, but not making much sense and talking about John the Baptist. He told her she could go to the police but she would probably get a weekend in the cells for being a prostitute.

Williamson, a married father of three, accepted that he had picked up both women to have sex with them and that he had used prostitutes before.

He claimed he was ashamed and told the court: “Of course it is something I regret.”

He said he had agreed a price of pounds 65 with the woman in Dundee for full sex and oral sex but it did not occur because after he found out no condoms were available.

He said he gave her pounds 20 for “a hand job” but she started asking for a further pounds 45. “I turned round and told her she wasn’t getting any more money off me. She wasn’t very happy.”

He said when he picked up the woman in Leith she had asked for £40 and he said he would give her £35 for full and oral sex. He claimed he never forced her to do anything.

He said he initially gave her money but said he was not happy with the service. He said when she found out she was not getting paid the fully amount she started kicking out at the car

Williamson, formerly of Dundee, told the court: “I wish now I had just given her the money. I probably wouldn’t be in this predicament now.”

Defence counsel Ronnie Renucci said Williamson had been assessed as posing a medium risk and had no record for violent offending.