A sex attacker who struck when he was 14 years old has finally been jailed for six years more than a quarter of a century later.
Lee Duncan, 41, was jailed after being found guilty of attacking an eight-year-old girl by a jury at the High Court in Dundee.
He was found guilty of sexual attacks on two children over a period spanning nearly six years between 1996 and 2002.
Lady Wade said: “You have been convicted of three charges of sexual offending spanning a period of six years.
“The most serious involved a girl who was eight or nine and you were 14 or 15. You continued to abuse her until 2002.
“Your offending has had a profound effect on them. The serious nature of the offending, coupled with the period over which it was perpetrated, has made a custodial sentence inevitable.
“You yourself were a child when the first offence took place. You have had a very troubled upbringing, being in residential care or a secure unit through a large period of your childhood.”
Denies his guilt
Duncan, Wellfield Terrace, Aberchirder, was found guilty of sexually assaulting the girl in Aberdeenshire during 1996.
He was found guilty of using lewd behaviour towards the same child between February 2001 and February 2002 and a similar offence against the second girl – when she was 14 – around the same time.
Counsel David Moggach, defending, said Duncan continued to deny his guilt but accepted that prison was an inevitable consequence of the jury’s verdict.
Mr Moggach told the court: “He had a broken and disrupted upbringing. He was at various schools and that must not have been easy for him.
“It appears to have given rise to problems he has had through life. He has found it hard to settle into a normal lifestyle.
“His position remains the same that he did not commit these crimes but he must respect the verdict of jury. He was 14 or 15 when he committed charge one.”
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