April 2015

Banffshire blacksmith jailed for 1990s child sex attacks

A north-east blacksmith who raped 14-year-old girl in the early 1990s has been jailed for 10 years.

Gordon Wall of Cornhill near Banff was also convicted of sexually assaulting a second girl and has now been registered as a sex offender for life.

The 57-year-old, who was living in Coventry at the time of the offences, admitted rape, attempted rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child.

Warwick Crown Court heard graphic details of how Wall groomed his victim before playing strip poker with her at his home.

Then in his late 20s, he also showed her a video called The Lover’s Guide.

Prosecutor Nicholas Cartwright told the court that after raping the teenager, Wall threatened to kill himself if she told anyone.

Shortly before Wall moved to Aberdeenshire with his wife he attacked another 14-year-old girl.

The offences came to light during a confrontation between Wall and his wife at their Cornhill steading in August.

She called the police after he got a knife and when officers arrived he confessed to having had “inappropriate relationships” with the two girls.

Jailing Wall, Judge Alan Parker told him: “The rape of a child, I am afraid, unhappily speaks for itself, as does an attempted rape of the same child, and one of the offences of indecency with a child is of a particularly repellent nature.

“It is all profoundly disturbing.

“But it is very important to emphasise that one of the very unusual features of this case is that when you were confronted with what you had done, you were candid about it and you pleaded guilty at the first opportunity in this court.”