Serial attacker held sex workers at knifepoint before subjecting them to brutal rapes

A serial attacker who held multiple sex workers at knife point in rape attacks in Dundee is facing a lengthy jail term.

Alexander Steven, 52, attacked five women in Dundee between October 2020 and October 2022.

A judge at the High Court in Edinburgh told Steven that he conducted “an appalling campaign of sexual violence” against vulnerable women.

Judge Norman McFadyen told jurors: “This has been a particularly troublesome case and I appreciate you have had to listen to, and indeed watch, distressing evidence.”

Steven had denied a series of charges during his trial but was unanimously convicted of six crimes by the jury and found guilty of a seventh by a majority verdict. He was found guilty of five rape charges and a further two of sexual assault with intent to rape.

The court heard that during the police investigation into Steven’s crimes, officers searched his then-home in Dundee on April 19, 2023 and recovered laptop computers.

On the same day police also executed a search warrant at his place of work at Bonar House at the fee-paying High School of Dundee and found an iPhone at the back of his desk drawer.

Steven’s first victim told the court that she had come to Scotland after breaking up with a boyfriend in London and moved into a flat in Dundee.

She answered a knock at the door, and a male intruder came in and shut the door. The woman who spoke through a translator said: “Then he showed me this knife with him and then he forced me into this room.”

The woman, aged 45, said her English was not good, but she could tell from his body language and as he was holding the knife that she was being told to take off her clothes.

She said: “He asked me to remove all my clothing and then he pushed me to the bed and sat on top of me.”

The woman said her attacker produced a rope and put it on her wrist. “He was saying I needed to put my hands together,” she told the court.

The woman said: “I got really scared at that point. I couldn’t tell what he wanted to do to me.”

She said: “I wasn’t sure what his actual intention was. I wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kill me or slash me.”

The woman, who said she was not a sex worker, said her attacker was much taller than her and quite well built. She managed to climb out a window at the flat and escape and asked for the police to be called.

Steven was convicted of forcing his way into the flat on October 6, 2020 and assaulting the woman with the intent to rape her. During it he brandished a knife at her, compelled her to take off her clothing, pushed her onto a bed and attempted to bind her wrists

Steven carried out his first rape two months later when he attacked a woman in the Lochee area of the city. He assaulted the woman in a flat and grabbed her hair, held a knife to her neck and forced her to take her clothes off before raping her.

The following year, he raped the woman again when she was again subjected to an attack with a knife held at her neck during the frightening ordeal.

In August 2021, Steven attacked and raped a third woman at a flat in the city after a knife was put to her throat. She was forced into a room and pushed onto a mattress. Her arms and legs were tied with rope, and she was tied to the mattress.

Her dress was cut with the knife, exposing her body, before he recorded himself sexually assaulting her.

A fourth woman was subjected to assaults and rape by Steven between March 2021 and October the following year. During the violent abuse, knives were held to her throat, and she was threatened with a screwdriver.

She was forced to undress, and her hands and feet were tied with rope during the ordeals she was subjected to by Steven.

A fifth woman said Steven came to a flat in Hilltown in May 2022 and subjected her to an assault and rape. She said when he arrived, she told him he would have to pay her first, but he produced a knife and put it against her neck and told her: ‘I don’t pay for sex’.

She offered to give him money, but he replied: “I don’t want money. I want sex.” The woman said she was “very much afraid”. She said: “I was worried he would stab me. He had threatened me saying ‘I am not going to kill you but I can hurt you’.”

The woman said she felt “utterly powerless” and was made to feel dirty and disgusted during the abuse. “He said while having sex ‘Who do you think is going to believe you? I am from the police’.” After he left, he sent her a message saying “thank you”.

Steven told the court that at first he went to see sex workers for sex, but then decided to “explore the idea of doing more”.

He said he used Google translate to communicate with the women and asked if they did role play. He said he believed he had the consent of all the women to what took place.

Advocate depute Leanne Cross said Steven had made appointments with women who were usually working on their own and were in a vulnerable position, and went there with a knife that was put to their throats or necks.

Steven was placed on the sex offenders’ register and remanded in custody after the judge called for a background report to be prepared on him.