Man jailed for raping two underage girls and trying to rape a third

A former miner who raped two underage girls and tried to rape a third has been jailed for eight years.

William Mailer was previously found guilty of carrying out the abuse during the 1970s and 1980s in Edinburgh and Dalkeith.
On Tuesday, the 71-year-old was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh for the attacks, which he carried out when he was in his 30s and early 40s.
Lord Glennie said it was clear from victim impact statements provided to him Mailer's actions had been seriously damaging.
He said: "They still show the scars even today."
Lord Glennie also placed Mailer on the sex offender register indefinitely.


Mailer, from Falkirk, had earlier denied six charges of indecent assault and rape but was found guilty of them all.
His first victim was aged 12 or 13 when she was attacked in a car at Holyrood Park, in Edinburgh, after she was given alcohol.
Mailer exposed himself and grabbed her by the neck and tried to get her to carry out a sex act during the incident between 1976 and 1978.
He assaulted the girl again and tried to rape her at his then home in Woodburn Street, Dalkeith, in Midlothian. She went to collect her school bag, which he had kept after the first attack, but was pushed into a bedroom and onto a bed during the assault.
During the same period he raped another girl who was aged 11 or 12 at the house in Dalkeith.
She was plied with alcohol and while she was intoxicated and asleep he removed clothing and had sex with her. He continued to rape her after she awoke.
Mailer indecently assaulted and twice raped another underage girl during the 1980s.The victim, now 42, told his trial that she would come to Scotland from her home in England to stay for holidays with her grandmother.
Mailer, who she said was a "touchy, touchy, feely, feely person", preyed on the girl at a house in Bonnyrigg, in Midlothian.
She said: "He just used to say things like he loved me, that I was a special little girl. Because he told me that was what was supposed to happen I believed him."
The woman said Mailer had carried out other sex acts with her as a child.
On one occasion he had taken her and other children to Portobello. The others were told to get out of the car to pick flowers and she was made to carry out a sex act on him.
She told advocate depute Keith Stewart QC that it stopped when she was 13.
Defence solicitor advocate Jim Stephenson said Mailer continued to deny the offence but realised he would be going to jail.
He said: "He is a man who suffers very, very poor health. Any custodial sentence is going to have a large effect on the remaining years he has left to live."