Man who raped teenage babysitter jailed for eight years

A man who sexually assaulted and raped a teenage babysitter after a previous street attack on a lone woman has been jailed for eight years.

Darren Appleby, 51, first targeted a stranger in Dunfermline, Fife, in 2006 as she walked to a friend's home.

The woman was dragged to the ground and molested by Appleby after he pulled and ripped her underwear.

Two years later he sexually assaulted a babysitter before raping her at houses and in a locked car in Fife in 2009.

The woman, now 32, told jurors at his trial that before he raped her, Appleby told her: "I want you. You know exactly why I am here."

She said he appeared "arrogant" and "cocky".

"He said he was going to go the whole way," she said. "I didn't want to. I kept saying 'please don't, leave me alone. I don't want this'."

The woman said that she kept asking him to stop during the ordeal. "I just wanted him to get off, to stop, but I was frozen," she added.

She said on a previous occasion she had acted as a babysitter when Appleby had been out drinking and began indecently touching her after he returned.

'Profound effect'

Appleby, formerly of Dunfermline, had denied a series of offences during his trial.

But he was found guilty of all five charges he faced - two of rape, two of indecent assault and one of assault with intent to rape.

A judge at the High Court in Edinburgh told him: "Your actions have had a profound and detrimental effect on your victims."

Lord Ericht told the father-of-two that in sentencing him, he took into account that he had no previous convictions.

His first offence was on 5 November 2006 when he attacked the lone woman on Foundry Street, Dunfermline, with intent to rape her.

He put an arm around her neck and forced her to the ground before kneeling on her legs.

Defence counsel Adam Black told the court that Appleby continued to maintain that he did not commit the offences.

"He appreciates that the court has no real alternative other than to impose a custodial sentence given the nature of the offences of which he has been convicted," he said.

He said Appleby, a rigger, had worked throughout his adult life at a local dockyard and had committed no further offences since 2009.

Appleby was placed on the sex offenders' register at the end of his earlier trial when Lord Ericht told jurors: "It has been a very serious and unpleasant case."