A pervert who abused children and raped a woman in front of her young son has been jailed for 12 years.
John Ballantyne was convicted of a catalogue of child sex abuse charges after a jury heard details of his horrific crimes and sentenced at Edinburgh High Court today.
The 60-year-old paedophile’s course of criminal sexual conduct spanned almost four decades between 1977 and 2016, including groping and exposing himself to a young girl at an address in Moodiesburn.
He was also found guilty of exposing himself in a sexual manner to another underage schoolgirl.
One of his young victims told how he came into her bedroom and tried to lift her bedclothes when she was 14 years old, and offered her money to go downstairs with him.
She told her teacher about the incident in 1993 and Ballantyne was interviewed by police.
However, no further action was taken on what the jury heard described as the “uncorroborated testimony of one small child”.
In addition to abusing the underage girls, Ballantyne was found guilty of indecently assaulting a young boy at an address in Stirlingshire when he was aged between seven and 10.
Ballantyne was also convicted of sexually abusing a second young boy aged between nine and 11.
The boy, now aged 17, said: “He always had a fascination with the way I dressed. He’d comment: ‘You’re looking good in that top. You should wear it more often, it really shows your body’.”
The boy said that when he was seven or eight Ballantyne asked him if he knew what pornography was and when he said no told him: “I’ll show you.”
The witness said the accused also sexually abused him, but told him not to tell anyone. The abuse didn’t stop until he was aged 11 or 12, he said.
The jury also found Ballantyne guilty of a further charge of intentionally causing the youngster to engage in sexual activity by directing him to sexually assault three underage girls in a sexual manner.
The monster was also convicted of raping the woman with an Irn Bru bottle in front of her nine-year-old son in Bonnybridge between January 1989 and December 1990.
Giving evidence in his own defence, Ballantyne flatly denied all the allegations and claimed the accounts of him inviting the youngsters to join him in bed while he was naked could not be true.
As a result of his convictions, Ballantyne was told, his name will remain on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.
