Teenage rapist jailed after attacking sleeping girl and abusing partners

A teenager who repeatedly raped his sleeping girlfriend when she was just 16 has been jailed for seven and a half years.

Jamie Brown was told by a judge: “The psychological impact of your appalling behaviour will endure.”

Brown, now 21, appeared by video link for sentence at the High Court in Stirling, after being found guilty by a jury in Edinburgh earlier this month of repeatedly raping one of his then-girlfriends and subjecting two partners a course of domestic abuse.

The incidents, in Bo’ness, West Lothian and North Berwick, East Lothian, began in February 2020 when Brown himself was still just 15.

Judge Jennifer Bain KC told him: “Over a period totalling 26 months you abused two separate partners employing similar patterns of behaviour.

“Each relationship started well and developed quickly, each partner moving into your family home where you perpetrated a campaign of jealous, aggressive and violent behaviour.”

He presented a knife, compressed their throats, headbutted them, spat at one of them, and punched and kicked them, all to their injury, and, to one of them on one occasion, her severe injury.

The victims, now both 22, were left “in considerable fear”, and both had to go to hospital.

The victim who was the youngest when her ordeal began told the jury that her relationship with Brown had been her first. Brown repeatedly raped her, including twice when she was asleep.

Judge Bain said her victim impact statement detailed her “struggles” to get her life back on track.

Judge Bain said: “That may well be a lifelong impact.”

Brown, of Bo’ness, a first offender, had denied the charges.

Judge Bain said he had failed to show any remorse, had minimised responsibility, and repeatedly sought to place blame on his victims and to discredit them.

Tony Lenehan KC, defending, told the sentencing hearing that the principle mitigating factor was Brown’s “uncommonly young age” – 15 and 16 – at the time of the commission of the two most serious charges, the rapes.

Mr Lenehan said: “Such a strikingly young age is relevant to the assessment of his decision-making, his susceptibility to influences in this online world, and a lack of consequential thinking.

“He was so very young.”

In addition to the seven and a half year jail term, Brown was made subject to an extended sentence of a further two years during which time he can be recalled to prison if he re-offends.

He was placed on the sex offenders’ register for life, and handed an indefinite non-harassment order preventing him from contacting or approaching either of his victims ever again.