July 2014
Rapist is spared jail
The mum of a Newton Stewart child who was raped by a 17-year old boy has hit out after he walked away with just 101 hours of unpaid work as punishment.
Conor Bull, the Stranraer teenager who pleaded guilty to raping the 12-year old girl, appeared in Glasgow’s High Court on Friday.
And now the girl’s mum said she would be pursuing any line of appeal she could against the sentence.
She told The Gazette after leaving court: “It’s disgusting that he can rape a child and walk off with this sentence. I couldn’t believe it, how can you do that to a wee girl then walk free? He should be locked up.”
Bull raped the schoolgirl in December last year and told of his crime to a friend, but the court heard he presented a low risk of re-offending.
The mum added that she was speechless about it all and she now plans to speak to her lawyer about what line they can take to appeal.
Judge Lord Burns and the court were told that the girl’s social networking sites claimed she was various different ages, ranging from 14 to 16, and that she’d told Bull she was 16 coming 17.
On 30 December, the pair went to Bull’s house and had sex. The offence only came to light after the girl went to hospital complaining of feeling sick and eventually told a medic that she’d recently had intercourse.
Bull’s lawyer said his client had been bullied at school and was immature, but now had a place on a catering course.
He will be placed under the supervision of a social worker for three years, be placed on the sex offender’s register for three years and will have to attend a course designed to make sexual offenders realise the impact of their actions.
