Serial Highland Rapist Gets Life

A dangerous predator who carried out a campaign of rape and violence against women was given a life sentence today despite claiming he was now "mortified" by his crimes.

Patrick Chinskie (47) raped five different women and indecently assaulted some victims with makeshift weapons during a litany of horrific abuse conducted throughout Scotland.

A judge told Chinskie, whose middle name is Savage, at the High Court in Edinburgh: "The crimes which brought you here today form a virtually unbroken 23-year chain of physical and sexual violence."

Judge Kenneth Maciver QC said victims had at first found Chinskie to be attractive, highly charming and irresistible but quickly came to realise that he had turned into "a sadistic and vicious abuser of them".

"Your conduct seriously damaged them and left them with physical and emotional scars," said the judge.

The judge said that he now knew that Chinskie, who originally went to trial denying the offences, now recognised the hurt and damage he had inflicted.

Chinskie wrote two letters which were given to the judge and highly unusually gave evidence today months after his trial finished in his conviction.

But the judge rejected a defence plea to pass a determinate sentence on Chinskie and instead imposed an Order for Lifelong Restriction.

"He told Chinskie: "That order constitutes a sentence of imprisonment for an indefinite period."

The judge said that professionals who had assessed Chinskie were of the view that he "posed a clear danger" to any women who engaged with him and he represented a high risk to the public in that connection.

The judge ordered that Chinskie must serve seven years in prison before he is eligible to apply for parole. Any future release will be determined by the parole authorities.

The judge earlier told Chinskie that it was clear that his controlling, abusive, violent physical and sexual conduct to them has had a damaging and enduring effect on victims

"The crimes against them were happening against a background of abuse of alcohol and drugs and a pattern of general criminality disclosed in a schedule of 30 other convictions," he said.

The judge said a previous report prepared on Chinskie ahead of sentencing had used phrases such as "a dangerous predator who has ruined his victims lives".

Chinskie's defence counsel Gordon Jackson QC had urged the judge to deal with Chinskie by a determinate sentence with a further period of supervision. Mr Jackson said of OLR's: "The record of people being released is, to put it mildly, not good."

Chinskie, who appeared in court today walking with the aid of a crutch, was earlier convicted of a total of 12 charges including rape, abduction and assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement with a total of seven women victims.

Chinskie's first victim was raped on various occasions between December 1990 and December 1993 at addresses in the Govanhill area of Glasgow and Bathgate, in West Lothian.

He also assaulted her by punching her, kneeling on her, butting her, biting her face and holding a knife against her throat.

On one occasion he jumped on the bonnet of a car she was driving and smashed the windscreen after kicking it.

Between 1993 and 1995 he subjected another woman to attacks and sexual assaults during which she was punched, kicked and bitten, he demanded she perform sex acts on him and also grabbed her nipple with a pair of pliers and twisted it.

He repeatedly demanded that she have an abortion.

During a journey between Inverness and Glasgow she was pulled out of a car and thrown to the ground before being hauled into a field and raped.

The woman was also pushed, repeatedly kicked, pulled by the hair, struck with a baseball bat and repeatedly burnt on the head and body with cigarettes. Chinskie threatened to kill her and her unborn child.

Another woman was raped by him in 1996 and 1997 at houses in Paisley, Glasgow and Darvel, in Ayrshire. During one assault he ripped a nightdress off her.

She was threatened with violence, punched, kicked and pushed and grabbed by the hair and dragged around a room and up a flight of stairs.

A further victim was assaulted by Chinskie at houses in Paisley, Glasgow, Wishaw, in Lanarkshire and Nairn, in Moray between 1997 and 2000 during which he punched and kicked her, butted her, grabbed her by the throat and burnt her with cigarettes. During one assault at a house in Paisley he held a machete against her throat.

During an attack at a house in Nairn she was grabbed by the throat and repeatedly punched and kicked.

In June 2008 Chinskie assaulted another woman by punching her on the head at the Rockness music festival site at Dores, near Inverness.

Between 2008 and 2011 he attacked another woman at houses in the Highland city.

The woman was also raped and indecently assaulted with bottles and aerosol canisters. She was threatened and beaten by the brute.

In 2013 Chinskie subjected a further woman to an ordeal of rape at a house in Aviemore in the Highlands. He also assaulted her by throwing a mirror at her, punching her, biting her, seizing her by the hair and pulling her to the floor, pinning her down and forcibly removing her lower clothing and penetrating her with a screwdriver or similar object.

During evidence given ahead of sentencing Chinskie told the court that it was hard to accept he was capable of the crimes. He said: "The only thing I can put it down to is the aggression with the drugs and drink."

He claimed that he did not remember a big part of the last 20 odd years "I am mortified....It is something I have grown up hating people for, yet I am facing these charges myself," he said.

Chinskie told the court that he had had a lot of sleepless nights and added that he would try to do everything he could to show he was sorry and he could be a decent person.

He said: "I can't begin to imagine what the women went through."