Court extends paedophile sentence

Millbank was caught after leaving a fingerprint

A paedophile who sexually abused young girls across Scotland has had his jail sentence increased by four years.

Three appeal court judges ordered that Joseph Millbank should serve 10 years in prison after the Crown appealed against the leniency of the original sentence.

The six-year term imposed by Lord McCluskey had angered parents of Millbank's victims.

It also prompted a protest from parents in Aberdeen, who gathered more than 5,000 signatures on a petition calling for harsher sentencing for paedophiles.

The sentence now combines an appropriate level of punishment with the protection children deserve

Colin Boyd QC
Lord Advocate

Millbank, 41, of Luncarty, Perthshire, had admitted a catalogue of crimes against youngsters.

He preyed on young girls for almost two years while he travelled round Scotland working as a shopfitter.

He was only caught after his fingerprints were found at the scene of one of the crimes in Inverness, where he molested a girl on her sixth birthday.

He was tracked down because of a shoplifting incident 15 years previously.

Other victims

Millbank abused his victims after luring them into tenement stairwells. He also took photographs of many of the girls, who were aged as young as three.

When police raided his home they found 435 images of children on a laptop computer and discs.

More than 30 girls were shown in the images, but police had only been able to identify 14 of the victims by the time the case came to court.

Appeal judges upheld the Crown's appeal

The investigation, which covered five force areas, was one of the biggest paedophile inquiries ever carried out in Scotland.

Sentencing Millbank in January, Lord McCluskey said his conduct was "plainly disgusting, perverted and deliberate.

"It has done immeasurable harm to some of the victims and untold harm to the rest."

However, the Crown argued that the six-year sentence imposed at the High Court in Edinburgh was too lenient.

The Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that Millbank had been offending against children once every three weeks at the height of his campaign of abuse.

Behavioural problems

"This was someone who gained the trust of children by talking to them and befriending them," he said.

Mr Boyd said many of the victims had suffered anxiety, while others had experienced behavioural problems.

Millbank, who claimed he was abused as a child, was assessed as posing a high risk of reoffending.

Colin Boyd QC argued the case in court

Mr Boyd told the appeal judges that the minimum sentence Millbank should have received was 10 years in prison.

The appeal was upheld by Lord Gill, sitting with Lord Kirkwood and Lord MacLean.

In addition to imposing a 10-year jail sentence, the judges also upheld the additional 10-year extended sentence ordered by Lord McCluskey.

Millbank will be kept under supervision for the length of that order and would be automatically jailed if he offended again.

Speaking later, Mr Boyd said: "This has been an anxious case for the many young and vulnerable victims all of whom were under 10 years of age.

"The sentence now combines an appropriate level of punishment with the protection children deserve."