Life sentence for sex offender John Bermingham

Bermingham had previously been jailed for 12 years for sex offences

A serial sex offender deemed to have "psychopathic traits" has been given a life sentence after he was assessed as posing a high risk to the public.

John Bermingham, 55, was convicted of subjecting three victims to abuse during their childhoods in Edinburgh, following a trial earlier this year.

He was previously jailed for 12 years in 2002 for carrying out sex attacks on a teenager and an 11-year-old girl.

On his release he was jailed twice for breaching court-imposed orders.

He was acquitted of attempting to abduct two young girls at Hallglen, Falkirk, in Stirlingshire, following a trial in 2018. After his arrest he was found to have sweets, sleeping pills and condoms in his possession.

Following his latest conviction, the trial judge, Lord Fairley, called for a full risk assessment report to be prepared on the former boxer and career criminal.

High risk

Dr John Baird, a former consultant forensic psychiatrist at the State Hospital at Carstairs, concluded that Bermingham was a high risk.

Advocate depute Lisa Gillespie QC asked him if he was in any doubt about that he replied: "I have to say I am not."

Dr Baird added: "He has got, I would suggest, quite a number of psychopathic traits."

He told the High Court in Edinburgh he had come to the inevitable conclusion that Bermingham's risk could only be managed when he was confined in a closed prison.

Dr Baird added: "He appears to believe that he was the subject of sustained police harassment and successive miscarriages of justice."

Lord Fairley imposed an Order for Lifelong Restriction which he said was necessary to protect the public from harm.

The judge told Bermingham: "I am quite satisfied that you do, as Dr Baird concluded, meet the threshold for psychopathy."

Indeterminate sentence

He ordered him to serve a minimum of four years imprisonment under the indeterminate sentence but emphasised that was the period to be served before the Parole Board could consider his case.

He told Bermingham: "It certainly does not signify you are likely to be released at the end of that period or that you will ever be released. That is, as I have said, for others to decide."

Bermingham's latest convictions were for three charges of indecent conduct towards two girls who were subjected to repeated sexual acts by him from the ages of eight and 14 at addresses in Pilton and Muirhouse in Edinburgh in 1999.

He was also convicted of a further indecency offence against a boy, aged 13 or 14.

Bermingham, who denied the charges, was also found guilty of assaulting an adult woman. She was punched on the head and body on various occasions between 1999 and 2001 at addresses in Edinburgh

He was told that he would be on the sex offenders register indefinitely following the sentencing.