A 24 stone pensioner who claimed he was too fat to travel to court has been jailed for seven years for raping and sexually assaulting young children.
A judge branded depraved Stanley Sandison “remorseless” – but also spared him a longer prison sentence because of his health problems.
But last night one of his victims said the 68-year-old wheelchair user should have been locked up for the rest of his life.
He raped two girls and sexually assaulted three more during a decade-long campaign of abuse.
Sandison was convicted of six historic charges at a special sitting of the High Court in Elgin last month.
His trial had to be held in the Moray town because Sandison claimed his obesity stopped him from travelling further afield.
At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, judge Lord Turnbull said he had “significantly reduced” the sentence he would normally impose because of Sandison’s medical conditions.
He said: “You were convicted after trial of a course of predatory sexual conduct against vulnerable young girls.
“All your behaviour involved serious sexual inappropriate conduct but in relation to two young girls it also involved the crime of rape. These are crimes of the most serious nature.”
The court heard that since being found guilty of the offence Sandison had shown “very little” empathy or remorse towards his victims, who were aged between four and 10.
A background report produced in court revealed that although Sandison accepted one of his victims would have been “scared” by her ordeal, he said that as she had now married he believed this indicated she had “gotten over it”.
Lord Turnbull said that when deciding on Sandison’s sentence he took into account that he was a 68-year first offender who committed the crimes decades ago.
He said he also considered the fact that his obesity would make it very difficult for him to offend in such a way again.
As a result he said he had reduced the sentence he would normally impose.
At a previous hearing the court heard Sandison, who has a specially-adapted house, felt he was too fat to even stand trial.
Representing the morbidly obese pensioner, advocate Bill Adam said his client would struggle in jail as he was currently housebound and needed the assistance of two carers four times a day to survive.
He said he also needed constant help treating multiple skin sores and maintaining general hygiene.
A jury took just over an hour to find Sandison guilty of six separate charges at the end of a four-day trial.
His offences were committed in the 1960s and 1970s. Originally he faced nine charges, but three were withdrawn by the Crown during the trial.
The retired distillery worker’s earliest recorded offence took place in the mid-1960s.
Between then and the early 1970s he conducted a campaign of sexual abuse against a primary school age girl and forced her to perform sex acts on him “on various occasions”.
He preyed on another two primary school age children between the late 1960s and mid-1970s.
A fourth victim told the court she was raped “about 10 to 12” times by Sandison.
Fighting back tears, the woman said: “He sat me on the couch and removed my clothes, then started touching me inappropriately and telling me to stay quiet.”
Sandison was also found guilty of raping another young girl in the 1970s.