Serial rapist who attacked a woman in Alness and Invergordon is jailed for ten years
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A SERIAL rapist who preyed on sleeping women during a string of sex attacks – which included addresses in Easter Ross – was today jailed for 10 years.
Antony Munro even attacked one victim on a long distance bus journey from Inverness to Bristol where she was due to give evidence in a court case
A judge told Munro (30) that his crimes revealed "a pattern of serious, opportunistic sexual offending" against victims, some of whom were vulnerable.
Lady Carmichael said some victims were also vulnerable because they were asleep, drowsy or in bed.
The judge said at the High Court in Edinburgh that Munro had no record for sex crimes, but she noted he has two previous convictions for assaulting children although he has never previously served a prison sentence.
She told Munro: "Your offending has had enduring consequences for the women you assaulted."
She also ordered that Munro should be kept under supervision for a further three years and warned that if he failed to comply with licence conditions during that period he could face being returned to jail.
Munro, described a prisoner in Grampian jail, was told that he would be placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.
During his sex crime spree, Munro raped and assaulted women at houses, flats and a hotel in Invergordon, Alness and Inverness in the Highlands and in Aberdeen.
Three victims were raped, two of whom were asleep. Two other women were subjected to sex attacks, one of whom was sleeping at the time.
Munro carried out his first sex crime on 2012 when he raped a woman in Invergordon. The victim was asleep and incapable of giving or withholding consent when he attacked her. She woke up and he continued the assault.
He struck again in August 2017 when he repeatedly molested the woman on the long distance bus journey and raped the same victim in April the following year after she fell asleep at a flat in Alness.
In June 2018, he sexually assaulted another woman at an address in Inverness and repeatedly touched her bottom.
On New Year's Day last year he tried to rape another victim at a hotel in Inverness.
In August last year another woman was molested by Munro at a flat in Aberdeen after he had been freed under two bail orders from Inverness Sheriff Court.
Munro had denied a string of offences at an earlier trial but was found guilty of eight charges.
Defence counsel Keith Stewart QC said Munro, who is prescribed medication for depression, continued to deny responsibility for the offences.
Munro told police that the woman he attacked on the bus and later raped took medication which made her feel tired.
The 32-year-old had made contact with him on social media and Munro had agreed to travel with her from the Highlands to Bristol where she was a witness in a court case.
Advocate depute Richard Goddard QC said: "He knew she took medication and he knew the side effects of her medication. It made her feel drowsy."
The woman said she was feeling very tired on the coach on the way south and wanted to sleep but became aware of Munro touching her.
She said: "I managed to doze off then I felt his hand going down below. I was nervous, embarrassed. I didn't know what was happening."
The court heard that on the return leg of the journey she was also subjected to Munro's "wandering hands".
During the later rape attack on her she woke up to feel an internal "stabbing pain" and could smell cigarettes from Munro's breath on her face. She told court: "I thought I had been raped."
The woman who was raped by Munro on New Year's Day last year had been out for Hogmanay in Inverness before going back to the hotel.
He later sent the 20-year-old a text saying sorry and goodbye.
