SENTENCING STATEMENTS

Please be aware that this statement contains details of sexual offences.

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said: 

"Alexander Law, you have this morning tendered pleas of guilty to a section 76 indictment libelling one charge of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and another charge of rape at common law.

You are presently aged 64.  The period of the libel in charge one covers indecent behaviour by you over a period running from 8 June 1973 to 21 April 1981.  The second charge libels a single occasion crime of rape occurring in the period between 22 April 1978 and 21 April 1981.  You were accordingly aged between 12 and 19 during the totality of this offending period.  Your victim was aged between 3 and 10.

You have a dreadful criminal history, all of which postdates the offending period of the charges on the present indictment.  You have to date accrued eight groups of convictions.  Five of these convictions, dating from 2007 to 2022, are non‑contact sexual convictions at indictment level.  You have served in respect of these convictions custodial sentences of 32 months, 45 months, 45 months, 12 months and 3 years, the latter disposal including a 12 month post custody supervised release order.

Your criminal conduct in the present case represents a campaign of sexual abuse against a child in respect of whom you were plainly in a position of trust. The damaging effects of your crimes upon your child victim will undoubtedly and on any view have been incalculable and life changing.

You touched, kissed and licked the complainer’s vagina.  You instructed her to go down on her hands and knees and on occasions caused a dog to lick her vagina.  You inserted your penis into her mouth and forced her to perform oral sex upon you, pushing her head up and down.  This oral penetrative conduct occurred around twice a week.  All of this criminal behaviour had occurred by 1977, when your victim was aged only 6.  Thereafter, when she was aged between 6 and 10, you continued to penetrate your victim’s mouth with your penis.  From 1979 you would additionally digitally penetrate her vagina and instruct her to masturbate you.  You would also masturbate yourself to ejaculation in her presence.  You instructed the complainer to pose, wearing only socks, and you would masturbate and ejaculate into her socks.  This conduct continued until the complainer transitioned from primary school to high school.  Finally, you raped your victim on an occasion when she was in primary three, going into primary four.  You instructed her to pose on her hands and knees, penetrated her vagina with your fingers, kissed and licked her vagina and then penetrated her vagina with your penis, causing the complainer to feel a stabbing pain in her stomach and occasioning severe pain to her.

I have listened with care to the submissions which have been advanced this morning in mitigation by your counsel, and note in particular what has been said regarding the circumstances leading to and surrounding your own voluntary disclosure of this matter to social workers in 2024 and the timing and utility of your subsequent early plea of guilty,

You stand today convicted of truly abysmal offending over a sustained timescale, against a child, in respect of whom you held a position of considerable trust.  You penetrated her orally on multiple occasions over a period of years.  You raped her on one occasion.  You caused a dog to engage in sexual conduct in respect of her.  Your conduct was undoubtedly highly coercive and dedicated to one end only, namely the satisfaction of your own highly deviant sexual desires and wishes.  You have an appalling record of indictment and non‑indictment level offending, albeit non‑contact offending, against young children.  You are clearly, on the material available to this court, a committed and resilient paedophile. You did not just rob your victim of her entire childhood; you destroyed it.

In the whole circumstances, standing the gravity of your crimes in this case and your post-offence criminal history, notwithstanding the significant feature of your own age during the span of the libel period, you will serve on this indictment, on charges one and two, on an in cumulo basis, a sentence of 10 years' imprisonment.  That period is discounted from a notional headline period of 14 years due to the timing of and background to your guilty plea in this case.  Had I been sentencing you on each of charges one and two separately and on a stand-alone basis, the respective headline custodial tariffs would have been 10 years and 8 years.

This sentence is backdated to the date that your previous custodial sentence expired,  your remand being thereafter solely due to your committal in custody in these proceedings, namely to 8 September 2025.

The court now certifies that you have been convicted of sexual offending to which Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 applies.  You will henceforth, standing the terms of the court’s disposal today, be subject to the notification requirements of the 2003 Act for an indefinite period.  You will shortly receive official paperwork in respect of these matters.

Finally, I direct the clerk of court to notify Scottish Ministers of this conviction in terms of the applicable provisions of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007."