Rapist jailed after sex attacks on women

Devery was remanded in custody until sentencing.

The woman went to police last year sparking an investigation into Steven Devery after making the comment during a Facebook conversation.

Devery (45) of Glenlyon Place, Leven, had denied raping the woman while she was asleep and under the influence of an unknown substance at a house in his home town between January 2004 and December 2005.

But a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh found him guilty of the offence along with an earlier sex attack on a teenager at a house in Methil, committed between December 2000 and November the following year.

He was acquitted of a further indecent assault between January 2005 and December the following year when he was alleged to have pushed a third woman against a wall and touched her at a house in Leven.

The rape victim, now aged 36, rejected a claim that she and Devery had got into a bed at the house in Leven and both fell asleep and nothing had happened.

She said: “He came out the door after me and asked if everything was going to be ok between us.”

The victim of the earlier indecent assault said she had been staying over at the house in Methil with her then boyfriend and Devery had been in the same room after he had been drinking and smoking cannabis.

She said she had had about three drinks but did not take drugs. She told the court that she had only started abusing drugs after Devery’s assault on her.

The woman, now aged 32, said that she woke up to find Devery molesting her. She said: “I didn’t know what to do. I froze for a second. It was like I was in a dream, a bad dream.”

She said she went to the bathroom and was crying but returned to try and waken her boyfriend. She said Devery was still sitting in a chair “as if nothing had happened”.

She said that when she finally roused her boyfriend from sleep Devery ran out the door “because he knew what he had done”.

Advocate depute Richard Goddard told the court that Devery had learning difficulties following a brain injury and was registered disabled.

Defence counsel Dana Forbes said he had previous convictions for possessing cannabis and ecstasy linked to attending raves in Scotland.

She said Devery had not previously served a prison sentence and asked that he be released on bail while reports are prepared on him ahead of sentencing.

The judge told Devery that he had been convicted of two very serious charges. Lord Armstrong added: “Rape, of course, is a particularly grave crime.”

He deferred sentence on him until next month for the preparation of background and psychiatric reports and remanded him in custody. Devery was placed on the sex offenders’ register.