Six years for 'monstrous' rape

Hamilton was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh

A man who raped a woman with a mental age of seven or eight after luring her into his car has been jailed for six years.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Craig Hamilton carried out the attack last October during an all-day drinking binge.

The 39-year-old was traced by police through DNA found under his victim's fingernails.

You deserve every bit of the punishment I am going to give

Lord Dawson

Hamilton, of Parkgrove Road, Edinburgh, had earlier admitted raping his 42-year-old victim on 13 October last year.

On Wednesday, Lord Dawson told him: "This was a monstrous offence.

"You lured a vulnerable woman into your car and then subjected her to a sustained and brutal sexual assault.

"Members of the public deserve the protection of these courts and you deserve every bit of the punishment I am going to give."

In addition to the six-year prison sentence, Hamilton will be supervised for a further three years after his release because of the danger he poses to women.

Isolated road

The court was told how Hamilton, a technician in the oil industry, picked his victim up at a bus stop in the Duddingston area of Edinburgh.

He drove the woman - who has a mental age of seven or eight - to an isolated, unlit road where he subjected her to a two-hour ordeal.

She told police that Hamilton threatened to put her in a river if she did not stop screaming.

"I was really scared, very scared," she told officers.

The victim told police she was threatened

When she was eventually released near Craigmillar police station, she told a stranger that she had been raped.

After the attack Hamilton, who was on a 12-hour drinking spree, went back to the pub.

The following weekend he told another man at a party that he had been "a bad boy".

Hamilton was arrested by police after DNA material found under the victim's fingernails was linked to him through an earlier conviction for drink driving.

Defence counsel Neil Murray QC said his client accepted that his actions were "totally and utterly beneath contempt".

'Utterly ridiculous'

Afterwards the victim's mother attacked the sentence for being too lenient.

"Whatever it was it wouldn't be enough, but I think six years is just utterly ridiculous," she said.

"I truthfully don't feel that justice has been done in this case. I feel he should have got longer."

She added that after the attack her daughter had lost her hard-won confidence, which she had taken years to achieve.