Man jailed for abducting schoolgirl while dressed as woman

Miller is said to be transitioning from a man to a woman

A man who abducted a primary school girl while dressed as a woman and then sexually assaulted her in his Borders home has been jailed for 20 years.

Andrew Miller, who is also known as Amy George, offered to give the girl a lift home in February this year.

But Miller, 53, instead drove her to his own house, took her into a bedroom and refused to let her leave.

He then subjected her to a series of sexual assaults over the course of the next 27 hours.

The High Court in Edinburgh also heard Miller will be supervised on licence for eight years in addition to his custodial sentence.

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Passing sentence, judge Lord Arthurson told Miller the narrative was "frankly nauseating in terms of its depravity and criminal sexual deviancy".

He added: "The abduction of young children from the streets of our cities, towns and villages for the purpose of their sexual torment over a prolonged period by a captor is mercifully rare in this jurisdiction.

"It is a uniquely appalling crime striking, as it does, at the heart of family life and, indeed, the very fabric of our society."

He described Miller's offences as "brazen and chilling" and said his intentions were "wicked and predatory".

Lord Arthurson continued: "The suffering of your victim and her family at your hands has been incalculable and life-changing.

"The trauma further inflicted by you upon her local community and the wider public is also immeasurable."

During his risk assessment Miller referred to the abduction, which he carried out at 17:55 on 5 February, as a "game".

In relation to the ending, he told the reporter he "went into business mode trying to think of a solution".

The court previously heard the girl, who did not know Miller, was only able to escape from the bedroom after he fell asleep on the second night of her ordeal.

At 21:24 on 6 February, she found his landline and dialled 999. Minutes later nine police officers arrived at the property to rescue her.

Miller - a father of three who lived alone - was still sleeping when officers arrived to arrest him.

In May, the court was told that Miller identifies as transgender and in the process of transitioning to female. He had owned a butcher's shop in Melrose which had been closed for several months before the abduction.

At the time of his arrest, he was presenting as Amy George but confirmed he wished to be addressed as Andrew Miller using "he" pronouns for simplicity.

Miller claimed to have been helping the girl when he was arrested by police

The girl later told police how she had been unable to get a bus home and so started to walk when she was approached "by a lady in a car" who offered to give her a lift.

She said she had accepted the offer and got into the Jaguar car because she was cold and believed the "lady" to be non-threatening.

Miller instead took her to his own three-bedroom detached bungalow in a residential street in the village of Gattonside, near Melrose, where he placed his arm around her neck and carried her to the main bedroom, where he repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

He also watched pornography and fetish videos on television, with the girl describing how she had seen "weird" things.

'Fear and distress'

She repeatedly asked to be taken home but Miller refused, saying that he intended to keep her for a week and that she was his new family.

The court heard that it was only by "complete fortune" that the child was able to escape once Miller fell asleep on a bed next to her.

She deliberately knocked a glass off a table and then turned on a light to see if he would wake up.

The girl then managed to escape the bedroom and called 999 from his landline.

The court was told that the girl's "fear and distress was palpable" in the call and her relief at hearing the police arrive at the house was obvious.

The butcher shop owned by Miller was boarded up after his arrest

Officers found Miller still sleeping and wearing a bra, silicone breasts, female underwear and tights.

The girl was taken to a nearby hospital to be medically examined.

Miller told the police he had stopped to "help" the child as she "looked freezing", saying it was a "motherly thing" and that he was being a Good Samaritan and had "put her in bed with me to warm up".

He previously pleaded guilty to the charges against him at the High Court via videolink.

The offences included abduction, sexual assault, possession of 242 indecent images of children and intentionally causing a child under the age of 13 to look at a sexual image.

Miller will be held in a male prison in line with new guidelines for trans prisoners who commit sexual offences that were introduced following an outcry over the Isla Bryson case.

Bryson was initially placed in a female prison after being convicted of raping two women while she was known as a man called Adam Graham.