Serial rapist from Paisley jailed for 12 years
Gerard Porteous' sex attacks described as "an appalling catalogue of abuse".
A serial rapist from Paisley who carried out a campaign of degradation against women has been jailed for 12 years.
A judge branded Gerard Porteous "a deeply dangerous individual".
The 56 year old slapped one victim in the face and locked her in her flat during assaults.
A judge told the rapist: "You have been convicted of an appalling catalogue of abuse against three women over a period of almost two decades."
Michael O'Grady QC said at the High Court in Edinburgh: "You are a deeply dangerous individual and that requires me to afford what protection I can to the public."
"Further, it appears to me that having regard to your past behaviour and your present attitude, even upon your eventual release you will require supervision for an appropriate period," he said.
The judge ordered that Porteous should be kept under supervision for a further four years.
He began his sex offending in 1994 in Airdrie, in Lanarkshire, when he raped a 24-year-old woman and committed his final crime in December 2013 in Paisley when he assaulted a woman with intent to rape her.
During an earlier trial he had denied a string of charges of sex assaults, assaults and disorder offences.
But a jury unanimously found him guilty of four rapes, two assaults with intent to rape, an indecent assault by urinating in a woman, two assaults and two offences of conduct causing fear and alarm to women.
Following the verdicts the judge told him: "You have been convicted of an appalling course of conduct towards three self-evidently decent women."
"You have used and abused and degraded them in the most vile and disgusting fashion. I commend them for the for the courage they have mustered in speaking up against you."
Mr O'Grady said that in contrast he considered Porteous to be "a bully, a coward and a deeply dangerous man".
The judge later told jurors: "These kind of cases are distressing.". Porteous was on bail throughout his trial but remanded in custody after the jury returned its verdicts.
Defence solicitor advocate Maurice Smyth said that standing Porteous' continuing denial of guilt he could not offer anything by way of mitigation to the court.
Porteous was earlier placed on the sex offenders' register.