Man convicted of 17 year campaign of abuse against women and girls in Tayside

A man who sexually abused vulnerable women and children was warned he faced a long prison sentence today.

Frank Mayne, 55, raped girls and women to subjected them to a campaign of violence during a 17-year long catalogue of offending from 2000.

Mayne, who was previously jailed for sex offences against a five-year-old girl, was convicted of 15 charges of assault, indecent assault, rape and indecency following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

He had denied the crimes committed in his home city of Dundee and at Tayport, in Fife, but a jury unanimously convicted him of 13 of the offences and returned majority guilty verdicts on the remaining two.

Mayne, a prisoner in Perth, admitted further charges of downloading and possessing indecent images of children.

A judge told him: "You stand convicted now by the jury of a horrific catalogue of sexual and violent offences committed over a long period of years against women and children."

Lord Pentland pointed out that two of the victims were children who Mayne groomed and subjected to repeated abuse.

He said adult victims were also subjected to "cruel and vicious treatment" which extended to the rape of one woman at knifepoint.

Lord Pentland praised the victims for coming forward to testify and told Mayne: "You may have thought that your crimes would never be brought to the surface but they have now."

He told Mayne that on the evidence in the case he was satisfied that he had "a sadistic, violent and depraved personality".

Lord Pentland said: "It is inevitable that I will, in due course, impose a lengthy custodial sentence on you."

He called for a background report to be prepared on Mayne ahead of sentencing in October and remanded him in custody until then.

The judge told the rapist that he would be on the sex offenders' register for the remainder of his life before thanking jurors for the "extremely important, challenging and distressing public service" they carried out.

During an attack on a woman Mayne grabbed her by the throat and pushed her head under water, before he dragged her from a bath in a flat in the Hilltown area of Dundee and held a knife to her neck during a rape ordeal.

One 26-year-woman said that when she first met Mayne as a child he came across as "a very nice man".

But she began to feel uncomfortable in his presence as he began touching her and making remarks such as 'you are looking beautiful today'.

She told the court that Mayne became obsessed with the way she looked and with her body and began making sexual moves on her.

The woman said Mayne had a camera and told her he was going to make a video of her and she would enjoy watching it.

She said she was petrified to speak out and fearful of Mayne's threats to hurt relatives.