VIOLENT HEROIN ADDICT JAILED FOR TERROR CAMPAIGNS AGAINST WOMEN IN PERTHSHIRE
A violent heroin addict who carried out a campaign of abuse and rape against women and teenage girls in Perthshire was jailed for 12 years.Dean MacGregor, 38, began targeting victims in 2010 and continued his crime spree in Aberfeldy, Perth and Orkney until 2022.
He was previously convicted at the High Court in Edinburgh of 12 offences, including violence and sexual offences, against five women.
MacGregor, a father-of-three with a long record of previous convictions including violent and sexual offending, had denied the series of charges at an earlier trial.
Sentencing judge Lord Ericht told MacGregor he would not impose an Order for Lifelong Restriction after a full risk assessment report was prepared.
Instead he imposed a 17-year extended sentence, with the jail term followed by a five-year period on licence in the community, when MacGregor can be returned to prison if he breaches its conditions.
Trail of devastation MacGregor subjected his first victim to a series of assaults at addresses in Orkney during which she was verbally abused and threatened, punched, kicked, pushed, pulled and spat on.
She was also gripped by the neck and her head was struck against a wall, leaving her unconscious.
In 2016 he raped the woman at a house in Aberfeldy while she was asleep and incapable of consenting.
MacGregor then targeted a teenager who he repeatedly raped at a flat in Kirkwall, Orkney.
The first assault took place when she was aged 15 and he was 30 and some of the attacks were when she was under the influence of drink and drugs.
In 2020 he sexually assaulted and attempted to rape another teenager at a different address in Kirkwall, only prevented from raping her by another person intervening.
She was so unresponsive from alcohol and drugs that after the incident she was admitted to hospital.
MacGregor went on to subject a fourth victim to violence and on one occasion in 2022 assaulted her to the danger of life at a house in Perth when he pushed her to the floor before grabbing and compressing her throat.
His final victim was abused and assaulted at a house in Perth the same year when he throttled, punched and threatened her, amid other degrading treatment including raping her while she slept.
By the time of the final sex attack MacGregor had been freed under six separate bail orders granted at sheriff courts in Perth and Dundee.
Heroin addiction Defence counsel Duncan McPhie told the court: "Addiction has blighted his life." "That is both alcohol and drugs, including heroin." He said his client continues to deny the sexual offending but there has been a "sea change" in his life and he has been assessed as posing a medium risk.
MacGregor was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely and Lord Ericht made non-harassment orders covering all five women.
