Nine years for on-the-run rapist

Robert Foye raped a schoolgirl while on the run from prison

A man who raped a 16-year-old schoolgirl after escaping from an open prison has been jailed for a minimum of nine years.

Robert Foye carried out the attack in Cumbernauld last year after absconding from Castle Huntly prison near Dundee.

He was serving a sentence for attempting to murder a police officer.

Foye, 28, has also been placed on a lifelong restriction order which means that if released from jail, he will be strictly supervised and tagged.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, the judge, Lady Smith, sentenced him to life imprisonment and ordered him to serve at least nine years behind bars.

His teenage victim was in court to see her attacker sentenced.

Foye, who admitted the rape charge at an earlier appearance at the High Court in Glasgow, had been on the run for almost a week when he carried out the rape.

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He had been allowed out of Castle Huntly to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

It later emerged that Foye had absconded from the open prison on a previous occasion in 2005.

The court heard that the 28-year-old lived rough in woods, drinking heavily, before he seized the girl in broad daylight as she returned from Cumbernauld town centre after collecting new contact lenses on 24 August last year.

Lady Smith noted that in spite of her ordeal the girl had achieved good exam results and was on course to achieve her goal of going to university.

But, the court heard, the teenager is still afraid of men, needs counselling and has only felt able to attend school part-time.

The judge told Foye: "You subjected her to not only physical violence but degrading sexual violation which has had a devastating effect on her."

Foye was given day release last August although he had previously been on the run, had failed a number of drug tests and had been "on report" for other breaches of prison discipline, the court heard.

Public apology

Lady Smith said: "I do not have enough information to comment on the appropriateness or otherwise of you in your circumstances, having been placed in Castle Huntly and allowed day release."

When details of the rape first emerged earlier this year, concerned MSPs raised the case with First Minister Alex Salmond at Holyrood.

In March, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill offered a public apology to the schoolgirl for the "shortcomings within our prison system that have allowed this individual to put her through such pain".

He has also warned that any inmates absconding from open prison in future are likely to be sent back to a normal jail.

Sentencing on Foye had been delayed on a number of previous occasions while background reports were being prepared, including detailed psychological and psychiatric tests.

Lady Smith said their conclusions persuaded her that he was a danger to the public, and would continue to be so until he changed his life.

The judge imposed a form of life sentence which will keep Foye behind bars until he is thought to pose no further risk to the public and which will then keep him under strict supervision for the rest of his days.

You subjected her to not only physical violence but degrading sexual violation which has had a devastating effect on her Judge Lady Smith

Only a handful of such "orders for lifelong restriction" have been issued since the courts were given such powers in June 2006.

Foye was convicted in 2002 of the attempted murder of a police officer, when he was given a nine-and-a-half-year sentence.

Lady Smith was told two police forces were trying to track him down last August after he failed to return from his day out.

Advocate depute Jennifer Bain, prosecuting, told how Foye asked his victim the time, then seized her, clamping a hand over her mouth and forcing her into woods near Dowanfield Road between Cumbernauld Village and Seafar.

Miss Bain told how the girl pleaded with Foye not to have sex with her, but he ignored her pleas.

Afterwards he walked away, telling the girl, who was covered in bruises and scratches, not to leave until he was gone. She ran away through a field.

Defence QC Paul McBride said that although it may be little or no consolation to his victim, Foye's distress and disgust at what he had done was "heartfelt."