A high-risk, convicted sex offender was jailed for six-and-a-half years today after subjecting two women to rape ordeals.
Darren Napier, 33, carried out a sex attack on his first victim at a house in the Highland town of Fort William. He grabbed the woman by the body and pulled her hair before raping her.
Napier struck again more than a year later when he raped a sleeping woman at an address in Kennoway in Fife.
A judge told Napier at the High Court in Edinburgh that the attacks he carried out would have caused trauma to victims and were likely to have long-lasting effects.
Lord Lake told the rapist: “Because of the gravity of the crimes you have committed and your previous record a custodial sentence is the only appropriate disposal in your case.”
The judge pointed out that he has “a significant history” of previous convictions, including for sexual offences.
Fort William rapist has ‘a high risk of sexual re-offending’
Lord Lake said a background report prepared on the offender said that he did not accept responsibility for his actions and concluded he presented a high risk of sexual re-offending.
The judge ordered that he be kept under supervision for a further four years and told him that if he breached licence conditions during that period he could be returned to prison.
Napier had earlier denied the rape charges at a trial at the High Court in Inverness but was found guilty of committing the offences.
The first occurred on an occasion between November 2018 and February 2019 at a house in Fort William. The second took place on November 28 in 2020 at an address in Fife when the victim was asleep and incapable of giving or withholding consent.
Defence solicitor advocate Shahid Latif told the court that Napier now accepted that he had to take part in courses available to him in custody.
Napier, who followed the proceedings via a TV link to prison, was told that he would be placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely following the sentencing.