A sexual predator who drunkenly molested seven women in a campaign of domestic abuse spanning nearly 30 years faces spending most of the rest of his life in prison.
Trial Judge Lord Mulholland branded Michael Gray a “danger to women” and called for a risk assessment with a view to placing him on an Order for Lifelong Restriction which will see him subject to imprisonment and supervision for the rest of his life.
Alcoholic Gray, 50, who drank up to four litre bottles of cider a day, was described as an “opportunist” who sexually assaulted his victims while they slept and used them as punchbags when they were awake.
At the end of a six-day trial at the High Court in Livingston, jurors returned unanimous verdicts finding Gray, who also goes by the surname Banks, guilty of 18 charges.
The unemployed fish farm worker, of Adamson Road, Lochgelly, had denied 10 rapes, three indecent assaults, three assaults to danger of life and a knife attack which resulted in the victim needing 11 stitches in a wound in her hand.
The jury took just two hours to convict him of committing the offences at addresses across Fife between January 1987 and January 2016.
Lord Mulholland ordered that Gray’s name be notified to Scottish ministers under Protection of Vulnerable Groups laws and added his name to the sex offenders register.
He told him: “You are clearly a danger to women and I have to assess whether an order for lifelong restriction is required to protect the public – particularly women – from you.”
Detective Chief Inspector Debra Forrester, from Scotland’s Domestic Abuse Task Force, said: “Michael Gray is a dangerous and predatory man who committed a campaign of violent and sexual crime against women who trusted him over a period of 25 years.
“The courage of the victims who spoke out against him should be commended and I hope it encourages others who are suffering domestic abuse to have confidence that they will be taken seriously, by both the police and our partners, if they come forward.
“This conviction shows that perpetrators of domestic abuse will be targeted and face consequences, irrespective of when their crimes were committed.”
Gray will be sentenced on January 11.
