A disabled Fife sex offender has escaped a longer prison sentence due to his declining health.
Richard McAllister was ordered to serve just over three years behind bars after being convicted of multiple offences after a trial.
However, he was told by a sheriff were it not for his illness, he would have faced an even longer period of imprisonment.
The 82-year-old appeared in court in a wheelchair and was excused from walking to the dock to hear his fate.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court had earlier heard McAllister suffers from Bell’s palsy and skin cancer.
Sentencing, Sheriff Charles Macnair QC told him several of the offences represented a “serious breach of trust”.
He said: “In my view this is far too serious for a non-custodial sentence.
“I take into account your medical conditions and the fact you are essentially immobile.
“But having regard to the serious and repeated nature of the criminal behaviour I do not consider anything but a custodial sentence would be appropriate in this case.
“If it were not for your medical conditions the sentence would have been significantly higher.”
Convicted of five charges
Solicitor Dewar Spence, defending, said McAllister continues to deny the charges but recognised the jury had the right to convict him.
He had urged Sheriff Macnair to impose a community-based sentence, stating McAllister was a first-time offender.
Last month, McAllister was found guilty by a jury of five of the charges he faced.
On two occasions between April 7 2012 and April 6 2014 and on May 17 2020, at Den Walk, he sexually assaulted a female, who was aged 16 on the date of the first offence.
On an occasion between March 26 2017 and March 25 2018, again at his home, he sexually assaulted a second woman.
He was further convicted of a charge that on an occasion between January 1 and December 31 2017, at an address in Buckhaven, he sexually assaulted a third person.
McAllister was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register.
