SENTENCING STATEMENTS

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HMA v Andrew Ingram

May 1, 2026

At the High Court in Stirling Lord Renucci imposed an Order for Lifelong Restriction on Andrew Ingram after he was convicted of 19 charges. Sixteen of those charges involved serious sexual offending against five complainers.

On sentencing Lord Renucci made the following remarks in court:

"On 3rd October 2025 at the High Court of Justiciary at Glasgow you were convicted after trial of 19 charges. Sixteen of those charges involved serious sexual offending against five complainers, four females and one male.

Your offending included seven charges of rape, including the rape of two children, and charges 3, 6, 17, and 19, each involved multiple instances of rape. In addition to the rape charges, you were also convicted of nine other serious sexual offences against children.

In truth Mr Ingram no-one was safe from your depraved behaviour but it is clear that children, especially vulnerable ones, were particularly at risk from you.

The scale and breadth of your offending was only surpassed by the length of it, given that it spanned a period of some 32 years from 1990 until 2022. A period disrupted in 1996 by a period of detention imposed for the crime of rape. A sentence that clearly had little effect on you given that your offending simply continued on your release.

Although not required to do so I initially called for a Criminal Justice Social Work Report in order to get more information as to the level of risk posed by you.

The authors of both the Criminal Justice Social Work Report and the additional report in respect of the Clyde Quay project, not surprisingly, recommended that the court consider the making of a Risk Assessment Order in terms of section 210B(2) of the 1995 Act, in order that your level of risk could be properly assessed, to determine whether or not there was a need for you to be made the subject of an Order for Lifelong Restriction, as there were significant concerns that the standard interventions available were unlikely to significantly reduce your risk of serious harm, given your presentation and the nature of your offending.

Having regard to both the number and serious nature of the offences of which you had been convicted; the terms of the reports, and your schedule of previous convictions including as it does a conviction for rape in when you were only 19; numerous breaches of the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003; and a sheriff and jury conviction for a sexual offence involving a child; as well as a contravention of s51A(1) of the Civic Government Act 1982;

I made a risk assessment order in terms of section 210B of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 and adjourned the diet for the preparation of a risk assessment report prepared by a chartered forensic psychologist and an accredited risk assessor. That report is now available.

The report is very full and highly detailed, running to some 76 pages in total. In short it has assessed you as presenting a high risk.

This assessment is based on clear evidence of a long-standing, varied, and escalating pattern of serious sexual and intimate-partner violence; the use of both physical and psychological coercion, including assaults when victims were asleep or intoxicated, and incidents of strangulation; and the presence of multiple, deeply rooted risk factors. These include persistent denial, attitudes that justify or minimise violence, severe difficulties in personality functioning, chronic substance misuse, unstable relationships, and repeated failures to comply with supervision or treatment, as evidenced by your convictions for failing to comply with the notification requirements under the 2003 Act.

The assessment concludes that taken together, these features indicate a strong likelihood that, if released without intensive controls, you would pose a serious threat to the physical and psychological safety of others. Particularly in situations involving relationship stress, conflict, or substance use.

Furthermore, he is of the opinion that protective factors are limited and mostly external, stemming from custody structures and oversight rather than internal strengths or skills.

Consequently, the containment provided in prison does not consistently transfer to community environments.

In other words, the only time the public is really protected from you is when you are in custody.

He also expressed the view that although interventions for sexual and intimate-partner violence can lead to modest reductions in reoffending overall, your specific profile, characterised by the severity and persistence of your behaviour, deep-seated denial and distorted thinking, longstanding substance misuse, impaired personality functioning, and a history of supervision breaches, indicates that any decrease in risk is likely to be gradual, fragile, and reliant on ongoing external control.

Even with treatment, long-term, effective monitoring and supervision would remain crucial, and any easing of restrictions would need to be justified by clear, consistent evidence of change across settings over time.

Ultimately, he concludes that without close supervision, structured intervention, and continuous review, aligned with your changing risk and treatment progress, and sustained oversight, the risk of serious harm in the community from you would remain unacceptably high.

Having regard to all these factors including the gravity of your offending, I have concluded that the offences of which you have been convicted together with the pattern of your offending behaviour is such as to demonstrate that you, if at liberty, will seriously the endanger lives or physical or psychological wellbeing of the public at large.

I am therefore satisfied that, on a balance of probabilities, the risk criteria expressed in s210E of the 1995 Act have been met.

I therefore intend to impose, in respect of the sexual offences namely charges 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20 and 25 on an in cumulo basis, an order for lifelong restriction in terms of s210F of the 1995 Act.

I have listened to all that has and could be said on your behalf. I have also had regard to the Victim Impact Statements provided to me in respect of three of your victims. It is clear from those victim impact statements that your actions continue to have a significant impact on them.

I have also had regard to your schedule of previous convictions and in particular those that involve sexual offending.

Taking all these factors into account were I not imposing an order for lifelong restriction I would have imposed a sentence of 17 years’ imprisonment, removing the element of public protection reduces that to a period of 15 years’ imprisonment.

I am thereafter required, as indicated by Parliament, to half that period giving a punishment part of seven and a half years. Had I been sentencing you on charge 13 alone, that is the contravention of section 6 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, the sentence would not have exceeded the statutory maximum.

Please understand Mr Ingram the sentence I have imposed on you today is not a sentence of seven and a half years imprisonment. It is a sentence of imprisonment for an indeterminate period.

You will only be eligible for parole once the punishment part has been completed and it does not follow that you will then be released. You will only be released when the parole board considers that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that you remain in prison.

When you are released if indeed you are ever released is a matter for the parole board in due course.

The sentence imposed today will be backdated to 27th October 2023 the date of your remand in respect of these proceedings.

Having regard to the sentence I have just imposed in respect of the sexual offences you are admonished in respect of charges 4, 8, and 9.

You will be subject to the notification requirements contained in Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for an indefinite period.