Teenage sex attacker locked up

Teenage sex attacker locked up

A teenage sex attacker has been locked up for three and a half years after subjecting a defenceless mother to a degrading ordeal.

Sentencing him to be detained in a young offenders' institution, the judge Lady Smith told Stewart Hampson, 18, that he was a danger to the public.

A second youth Ian MacMillan, 17, was put on probation for a year.

And a warrant was issued for the arrest of a third - Jason Fox, 18 - who failed to appear for sentence.

Landmark ruling

Hampson, from Rutherglen near Glasgow, had originally been accused of taking part in a drunken gang rape after being thrown out of a party in May 2001, when he was 16.

His victim who was in her late twenties at the time, was so terrified that she begged to be allowed to give her evidence from behind a screen.

In a landmark ruling, appeal court judges agreed that she could be protected from the gaze of the accused, something which normally happens only when children are involved.

But in the event the trial was halted when Hampson pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of indecent assault, and his victim did not have to give evidence.

Appearing for sentence at the High Court in Edinburgh, he was told by the judge that he had subjected the vulnerable young woman to a degrading and abusive assault.