Serial rapist and child abuser faces life sentence after Fife attacks

David MacBride (44) was brought back to Scotland from Spain this year to face justice after failing to turn up for a court hearing in 2016 and fleeing abroad.

MacBride denied a catalogue of offending against adult woman and children during a trial but was found guilty of eight rape crimes and three sexual assaults.

A judge told him at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You have been convicted by the jury of dreadful sexual crimes committed against five females, including two children.”

Lord Uist earlier adjourned the case for the preparation of a background report on MacBride who has never previously served a prison sentence.

Defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin urged the judge to deal with MacBride by imposing a “substantial” determinate prison sentence and a further period of supervision.

But today Lord Uist ordered the preparation of a full risk assessment order on the predator which can lead to the imposition of an Order for Lifelong Restriction.

The judge told MacBride: “You are currently assessed as posing an unmanageable risk of further analogous offending in the community setting. It is an extremely alarming statement.”

Lord Uist earlier told jurors that they had to listen to “some distasteful and sordid evidence” during MacBride’s trial.

MacBride, formerly of Westwood Avenue, Kirkcaldy, carried out sex assaults on women and children between 2007 and 2014 at addresses in Cardenden, Glenrothes, Burntisland, Kirkcaldy, Methil and Dunfermline, all in Fife during that period. Some women were subjected to multiple rapes.

One woman, who met him when she was a teenager, said that she was the victim of sex attacks “more than once”

The 29-year old said she had been in bed and tried to pretend she was sleeping when MacBride arrived at her flat but he got on top of her.

“He grabbed my arms. He pinned them against the bed. I tried to struggle to get my arms free. He was too strong,” she said.

The victim, who was 19 at the time, said she was “quite panicked” and told MacBride to get off but he ignored her pleas to stop.

She said: “I asked him to get off me again. Still he never did. He ended up pulling my underwear off. He carried on and had sex with me.”

The woman agreed that MacBride appeared “like he was doing no wrong”. She told advocate depute Lisa Gillespie that when she later spoke to him “he thought there was nothing wrong with it”.

She said: “He thought there was nothing wrong with a bit rough sex. I had marks round my wrists.” The woman said that MacBride perpetrated attacks on her when he arrived at the flat drunk.

A second woman, now aged 44, said MacBride turned up unexpectedly at a flat she had moved into in Glenrothes in 2010 as her partner was in hospital recovering from an attack which resulted in him being in a coma.

The woman said she was surprised to see him but agreed to let him stay the night while she slept on a couch. She said she woke up and found MacBride trying to carry out a sexual assault on her.

She said she pretended to be asleep because she “was not sure what he was going to do next”. She said: “I just froze.”

But she said her daughter came in and caught MacBride in the act and began shouting at him and threatened to phone the police prompting him to leave.

A girl revealed that MacBride had first abused her when she was aged five. She told the court she was left feeling scared and added: “He said not to tell anyone or my mum would go to jail.”

During recorded interviews with the child, now aged 13, she revealed she was having nightmares about MacBride “coming to get us”.

She said MacBride made her touch him and abused her on an occasion when he was left with her as other family members attended a relative’s funeral.

During a police interview over the allegations made against him father-of-nine MacBride told officers it was all untrue.

MacBride claimed that one of the women was out to get him and was seeking revenge against him. MacBride was detained in Cadiz last year before being brought back to Scotland.

Lord Uist ordered that he be remanded in Perth prison for a report to be prepared on him which consider what risk his being at liberty poses to the safety of the public. The case was adjourned until December.

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