Military firefighter raped teenager while his children slept upstairs

A military firefighter has been jailed for seven years after raping a vulnerable teenage girl during a catalogue of child abuse committed over 20 years.

Stephen Baker, 54, attacked the teenager at his then home in Lossiemouth, in Moray, while his own children were asleep in their beds.

A judge told Baker at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You were convicted after trial of a number of sexual offences committed against five children whose ages ranged from nine to 15.”

Judge Alison Stirling said: “The most serious offence was the rape of a 15-year-old girl. She was a particularly vulnerable child because she lived in a children’s home. You knew that.”

“You raped her on your living room floor while your children were upstairs sleeping,” she added.

Baker, from Elgin, in Moray, went on to commit further abuse against the child victim subjecting her to sex acts.

The judge said that some of the abuse occurred in his car while he was driving the victim back to the children’s home.

She said she accepted that Baker was a long- serving military firefighter until his suspension pending his trial and that he had no previous convictions of any relevance.

She told Baker: “There were no significant issues or trauma in your childhood.”

The judge said: “Custody is the only appropriate disposal having regard to the serious nature of your offending.”

She noted that from a background report prepared on Baker that he did not accept the verdicts of a jury who convicted him and told him that the jail sentence was for punishment, protection of the public and rehabilitation in custody.

Baker had denied offences during an earlier trial but was convicted of one charge of rape, one of indecent assault and five of indecent conduct. The offences were committed between 1985 and 2006 and all occurred in Morayshire.

His first victim was a 13-year-old girl who he kissed, touched and subjected to sexualised abuse.

Baker then began abusing a boy, aged nine, in 1989 and watched him shower, exposed him to pornographic content and carried out sex acts in his presence.

He later went on to expose himself to a nine-year-old girl at an address in Kinloss, in Moray, and tried to get her to carry out a sex act on him. He also made sexual remarks to the child and indecently assaulted her.

In 2001 he preyed on another teenager, touching the 14-year-old girl and carrying out a sex act on her.

Defence counsel Niall McCluskey said Baker was aged 38 when the offending had ceased and was assessed as posing a low or moderate risk of re-offending.

He said: “He has been in the armed forces. He is someone who does keep his feelings to himself.”

The defence counsel said he acknowledged the offences were very serious matters and that a custodial sentence was inevitable.

Baker was told that he would be placed on the sex offenders’ register for an indefinite period following his sentencing.