Rapist jailed after attacking woman while on bail

A CONVICTED rapist who struck again days after he was freed on bail was given an indeterminate prison sentence today.

Alexander Gallagher was out on licence, wearing an electronic tag and under a curfew when he brutalised his latest victim in her home.

Gallagher, 41, repeatedly raped the woman and sexually assaulted her during the attack in March 2013 at her flat in the south side of Glasgow.

He also threatened to kill her and used a carrier bag to gag her in a bid to silence her screams.

Gallagher, who was jailed for 10 years in 2000 after abducting and raping a businesswoman as she waited in her car at traffic lights, was challenged about his latest victim “screaming” during the assault in her home.

But he told his earlier trial: “It was just noises from sex, nothing more. We were having consensual sex.”

Despite his denial Gallagher was convicted of attacking and raping the 34-year-old woman on March 23 2013 following an earlier trial.

She was dragged into a bedroom and thrown on a bed and repeatedly threatened she would be killed and punched on the head during the ordeal.

The victim was left battered and bruised when he later left her home.

Gallagher had been freed on bail five days earlier at Glasgow Sheriff Court. He claimed that he had been at the woman’s home “having a jolly” listening to music before she went to bed.

He said he had joined the woman in the bedroom claiming they became “intimate”. But the victim said she was attacked by the convicted rapist and forced into having sex.

A judge told Gallagher at the High Court in Edinburgh: “You were convicted by the jury of a charge of assaulting, threatening and repeatedly raping a woman.”

Lady Wolffe said: “The evidence disclosed an exceptionally nasty, repeated and prolonged attack upon a victim in her own flat.”

The judge pointed out that the effect on the victim had been “deeply traumatising”.

Lady Wolffe said Gallagher had an extensive record of previous convictions which revealed an increasing propensity for violence and sexual violence.

She said most concerning was his previous conviction in the High Court for rape which had resulted in a 10-year prison term.

The judge told him: “I am in doubt that you present a serious risk of danger to the safety of the community.”

Lady Wolffe said he had been assessed as posing a high risk to the safety of the public and passed an Order for Lifelong Restriction on him.

Under such a sentence the judge fixes a minimum period the offender must serve in prison before he becomes eligible to apply for release on licence.