Court / Pensioner given ten-year prison sentence for historic sex offences

A PENSIONER was jailed for 10 years today (Friday) for committing sex attacks on teenage victims three decades ago in Shetland.

Anthony McElhone, 71, indecently assaulted two girls and raped one of the victims on two occasions.

A judge said the victims had shown courage in testifying against their abuser and told McElhone: “You are responsible for causing deep and continuing suffering.”

McElhone targeted his first victim on occasions between March 1993 and December 1995, when she was aged 15 and 16, making sexual remarks to the teenager and on one occasion touched her body.

He went on to subject a second girl to repeated abuse from the age of 16 between August 1995 and December 1996 when he molested her, made sexual remarks to her and exposed himself. On two occasions he raped her.

The offences occurred at various locations in Shetland.

Judge Lady Ross told McElhone at the High Court in Edinburgh that he took advantage of the second victim in a “truly horrible way” and exploited her vulnerability and groomed her.

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She told him: “I will acknowledge the courage shown by your two victims in speaking up and coming forward.”

Lady Ross said: “About 30 years in the early to mid 1990s in Shetland you committed sexual offences against two teenage girls and now your past has finally caught up with you.”

She told McElhone that he was “an arrogant man” who accepted no responsibility for his offending behaviour.

McElhone, formerly of Morton-on-Swale, in North Yorkshire, had denied committing the offences but was earlier convicted of two charges of indecent assault and one of rape.

Lady Ross pointed out that the jury at his trial returned unanimous guilty verdicts against him to the charges he faced.

First offender McElhone served in the Royal Navy before taking on various jobs in different parts of the country.

Defence solicitor advocate Paul Mullen said McElhone had a good work history and appeared to have led a prosocial life.

He said McElhone was a man of “advancing years” who was assessed as posing a low risk of further offending.

McElhone, who followed the sentencing proceedings via a video link from prison, was placed on the sex offenders’ register for an indefinite period.

By Edinburgh Courts Press Services