A rapist who abused four young girls has been jailed for 12 years after being confronted by vigilantes on his doorstep.<\/p>\n
Brian Stobie, 70, was convicted of a series of offences against the girls – one under 16 and three under 12-years-old – in Edinburgh between 1990 and 2007.<\/p>\n
The former bus driver was later caught in a sting by vigilantes in 2022, when he attempted to contact underage girls online but instead spoke to adults.<\/p>\n
At the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Alison Stirling told Stobie he would be jailed for the “serious nature of your offending”.<\/p>\n
Stobie, of Duke Street in Leith, had denied eight charges of abusing the girls.<\/p>\n
But a trial heard how he made his victims sit on his knee and molested them during visits to a flat. He also exposed himself and raped one of the girls.<\/p>\n
Advocate depute Martin Crawford, prosecuting, said: “These were experiences that happened when they were children, in circumstances which were outwith their control.”<\/p>\n
The court heard that one woman was left struggling with issues of trust and maintaining intimate relationships and had avoided the area where her abuser lived.<\/p>\n
Defence counsel Andrew Crosbie said that Stobie was also the subject of an online vigilante “sting”, when he tried to obtain naked pictures from young girls.<\/p>\n
He was, in fact, speaking to adults who live-streamed a confrontation with him at his home in August 2022.<\/p>\n
Stobie admitted a four charges of attempting to communicate indecently with underage girls.<\/p>\n
Mr Crosbie said: “He accepts that he has been convicted of offences of real gravity”.<\/p>\n
Stobie was jailed for 12 years and nine months and put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.<\/p>\n
He was also given a non-harassment order prohibiting him approaching or contacting his four victims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rapist who abused four young girls has been jailed for 12 years after being confronted by vigilantes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-258749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115810763104413780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}