A teenage rapist who subjected two girls as young as eight to horrific sexual abuse has been jailed.
Ross Jones was sentenced to four-and-a-half years imprisonment on Monday, with the judge telling him it was necessary to “protect the public”.
Jones was found guilty of subjecting three girls to horrific sex crimes between November 2013 and June the following year.
A jury at the High Court in Glasgow previously heard how he was just 15 or 16 when the attacks occurred.
Last year the beast was locked up for 44 months after he sexually assaulted and robbed a 13-year-old girl at an East Kilbride underpass in October 2018.
He was also previously arrested and charged in connection with the sexual assault of a 75-year-old woman in the town’s Greenhills area in September 2017, but that case was dropped.
Sentencing Jones at the High Court in Edinburgh this week, Lord Burns told the beast how one of the children was aged just eight or nine when he “sexually abused her in the most serious way”.
Lord Burns told the rapist that he would be monitored and supervised
for a further four-year period following his jail sentence.
At the High Court in Edinburgh this week, the judge told Jones, now aged 22: “I accept the social enquiry report recommendation that this is a case where an extended sentence is required in order to protect the public.”
Lord Burns said he had to take into account the age of Jones now and when the offences were committed, but added that he also took into account the serious and prolonged nature of the offending.
He said the sentence of imprisonment passed on Jones would be restricted compared to that which would have been imposed had he been older.
Jones, who appeared from Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution, had earlier denied a string of charges at trial, but was convicted of four rape offences and sexual assaults that he committed in East Kilbride between November 2013 and June 2014.
His two youngest victims were both just eight when he began preying on them at a house in the town where he molested them.
He then raped one of the girls.
A third girl was assaulted and raped by him at addresses in East Kilbride and at woodland in the Greenhills area of the town.
During the latter attack she was pushed and fell to the ground where Jones lay on top of her and restrained her arms.
Defence counsel Tony Graham QC said the offences could “only be described as horrendous crimes”.
He said Jones realised that he must receive “a significant custodial sentence” but pointed out that they were offences committed during adolescence and that he was still a young man.
Hamilton Sheriff Court heard last March how Jones and an accomplice attacked a 13-year-old girl and her 16-year-old cousin at an underpass in the town’s Rothesay Street.
Jones admitted sexually assaulting the girl on October 19, 2018, while his accomplice, Scott Laughlin, admitted assault and threatening to stab the terrified youngsters.
Laughlin grabbed the 16-year-old boy by the throat and demanded that both hand over their phones.
The boy was then shoved to the ground where he was punched and kicked as he ‘lay helpless’.
Jones grabbed the frightened girl by the hand, took her up a set of stairs and indecently assaulted her before making her participate in a sex act with him.
His semen was later found on the sleeve of her jacket.
Court heard how her cousin was left fearing for his life in what was described as a “dreadful ordeal” that only ended when a brave passer-by intervened.
Jones was locked up for 44 months at that time, while 24-year-old Laughlin was jailed for 20 months.
Jones was also put on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period.
