HIGHLANDER BARBER JAILED FOR 14 YEARS AFTER RAPING WOMEN
A barber who brutalised and raped women in the Highlands was jailed for 14 years today.Gerald Hever, 51, began targeting females for abuse in 1996 and subjected two women to rape attacks and a third to indecent assault.
Hever, formerly of King Street, New Elgin, had denied a series of charges during an earlier trial but was found guilty of eight crimes perpetrated against three women.
A judge pointed out at the High Court in Edinburgh that seven of the verdicts returned against him were unanimous decisions by the jury.
Lord Summers ordered that Hever should be under supervision for a further three-year period in the community after his jail term, when he will be on licence and can be returned to prison if he breaches it.
Hever verbally abused his first victim and inflicted bouts of violence during which she was punched, kicked and butted.
The woman was also grabbed by the throat during attacks on her.
She was also raped by Hever on two occasions in 1997 and 1998.
A second woman was also subjected to verbal abuse and physical violence by Hever, who punched and kicked her and grabbed her by the hair and throat in assaults between 2001 and 2004.
The woman was also subjected to multiple rapes and indecent assaults by Hever, who pulled her hair during sex attacks.
A third woman was also repeatedly seized by the hair and punched and kicked by him in attacks that began in 2007.
He held her head under a sink of water and caused her to lose consciousness, as well as indecently assaulting her.
Hever committed offences against victims at addresses in Inverness, Tain, Invergordon, Forres and other locations in the Highlands.
Lord Summers told him that some of the conduct was “obnoxious in the extreme”.
Defence counsel Mark Stewart KC stated that Hever maintained his innocence throughout his earlier trial at the High Court in Inverness, claiming that his sexual encounters with these women were consensual.
Lord Summers also sentenced Hever to be on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely and imposed non-harassment orders banning contact with the victims for 20 years.
