A rapist who kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach during a 15-year reign of terror and abuse has failed in a bid to have his conviction quashed.
Mark Duthie preyed on seven women during a campaign of sexual violence and abuse in which victims were subjected to rape, assault and abduction.
The 34-year-old began committing crimes against females when he was aged 16 by kicking his first victim on the stomach while she was pregnant.
In a separate incident at a house in Forfar, in Angus, Duthie held the same woman down and raped her in 2003.
Eight years later he subjected another woman to rapes at a house in Montrose.
On one occasion he assaulted her while she was asleep and on another she was punched on the head during the attack.
Other victims were subjected to violence by Duthie.
One woman was kicked in the groin by him at a lane in Brechin in August 2009 while she was pregnant.
Lawyers acting for Duthie believed he had been wrongly convicted.
They argued that the time between the attacks meant that the incidents couldn’t be used to corroborate each other.
They told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that legal rules surrounding corroboration required offences to be committed close in time to each other.
However, judges Lord Carloway, Lady Dorrian, Lord Menzies, Lord Pentland and Lord Matthews rejected defence submissions.
In a written judgement issued on Wednesday, Lord Carloway ruled that Duthie’s conviction was safe and passed legal tests.
He wrote: “Although there was a significant time gap between the rapes involving the two complainers, there were sufficient similarities in the appellant’s actings... to enable the jury to draw the appropriate inference of a course of conduct persistently pursued by the appellant.
“The appeal is accordingly refused.”
At proceedings last year, Lord Boyd told Duthie, formerly of Barry, in Angus, that victims had experienced long lasting emotional and psychological trauma.
He had been found guilty of a total of 28 charges committed between January 2003 and January 2018.
The judge said that apart from the rapes against two of the women Duthie had also carried out "a sustained course of physical and psychological abuse" against victims over a long period of time.
Duthie was sentenced to nine years last May and was also told that he would be kept under supervision and monitored for a further two years.
He was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.
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