Prison for policeman sex attacker

Stewart will serve two years under supervision on release

A policeman has been jailed for five years for sexually assaulting two women and a 15-year-old while in uniform.

Constable Dean Stewart, 35, committed the crimes while stationed in North Ayrshire and was convicted last month after a 10-week trial.

The jury cleared him of three charges of rape and another seven of indecency.

Judge Lord McEwan said Stewart had shown "no remorse" and said he would serve a further two years under supervision on release.

Stewart - who was suspended from Strathclyde Police when the allegations came to light - resigned from the force.

Sentencing him at the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord McEwan told Stewart a serious jail sentence was necessary "if only to send out the correct message to others."

The judge said: "All of them were vulnerable women.

Background reports

"One of them had difficulties with drugs and her education, one was a mere child and the third was, at the time of the offence, extremely drunk to the point where she was probably unconscious."

The judge said he was taking into account the fact that Stewart had previously had a good record as a policeman and as a soldier.

Lord McEwan said background reports confirmed there was a low to moderate chance of him offending again.

One of the attacks was carried out in Irvine

At the start of his trial, Stewart, from Paisley, was accused of a total of 13 sex attacks on nine different victims, three rape charges and 10 alleged indecent assaults.

The charges covered six years between 1998 and 2004 when Stewart was a constable in Strathclyde Police's U Division in Ayrshire.

He was based at stations in Kilbirnie, Saltcoats and Irvine.

After sentencing, a force spokesman confirmed that Stewart was no longer a serving police officer and said there would be no further comment.

The trial in Glasgow heard how Stewart told a 24-year-old drug addict there was a warrant out for her arrest.

Stewart was stationed at Kilbirnie for a time

Once he got the woman into his police van, he drove her to a farm track and indecently assaulted her with his police baton.

A 30-year-old mother-of-two described how she had been drinking heavily at a party at a neighbour's house in Irvine.

Police were called to the flat and by the time Stewart and another officer arrived the woman had passed out.

Stewart's colleague left the house and the woman later came round to find Stewart with his hand down her trousers.

Stewart was helping investigate allegations of under-age sex when he met the 15-year-old schoolgirl.

He was cleared of raping her at her home in Dalry while she was drunk but found guilty of indecency with the girl on another occasion.