High-risk serial rapist Barry Mulholland jailed for nine years

A high risk serial rapist who preyed on underage girls in a campaign of abuse has been jailed for nine years.

Barry Mulholland, 47, from Dalbeattie, subjected a woman and four girls under 16 to rape ordeals. His victims included a child of 11.

He had denied the offences but was found guilty following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

He was jailed at the High Court in Edinburgh and placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

Lord Richardson told him: "It is clear that your actions have had a profound and long-standing impact on some of these young women.

"You have been found guilty of six charges of the rapes of five young women.

"These convictions are as a result of what I can only describe as a campaign of abuse carried out against these young women."

He said a lengthy jail term was the only appropriate sentence to reflect such "appalling conduct."

The court heard that Mulholland had been assessed as posing a high risk of offending.

Lord Richardson ordered that he should also be placed under supervision for a further three-year period and told him that if he breached licence conditions during that time he could be returned to prison.

Mulholland had denied the offences but was found guilty following an earlier trial.

Defence counsel Gary Allan QC told the court: "He has maintained his innocence."

He said Mulholland had previously served a prison sentence and that since his release from that his behaviour had given rise to no further police reports over his conduct.

Mulholland raped his first victim between August 1994 and August 1997 when she was aged 14 or 15 at a house in Bo'ness.

He then raped another girl in Moffat when she was aged 14 and targeted another teenager when she was 15.

His youngest victim - aged 11 - was attacked by him in a car at a location in Dumfries and Galloway between December 2015 and December 2016.

His only adult victim was a woman who was raped at a house in Dumfries in 2017.