A SERIAL sex attacker who left a woman so frightened she climbed out of a first-floor window to escape him is facing jail.
Alexander Gemmell was found guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh today of assaulting a 47-year-old woman with intent to rape her in East Lothian.
The week-long trial heard his most recent victim, a waitress, describe how she had met Gemmell, 46,
at a bus stop in Princes Street in Edinburgh on November 1 last year after a night out with a friend.
She invited him back to her home because she felt sorry for him as he was staying in a hostel. She told the court she made clear to Gemmell that she was only offering him a place to sleep for the night, on the couch.
Gemmell paid for a taxi to her home in Whitecraig, East Lothian, but became aggressive when they got in, ripping off the woman's jumper and bra and slapping her about the face and head, grabbing her by the neck.
He tried to push her into the bedroom, ripping off part of her skirt, and threatened to stab her if she did not stop screaming for help.
The woman escaped after telling Gemmell she had to go to the toilet and climbing through a bathroom window and falling to the ground.
She was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where she was found to have a spinal injury and a fractured right ankle and spent four days in hospital. She told the court she remains off work and needs counselling, physiotherapy, painkillers and a walking stick.
Gemmell was found guilty of assault to severe injury, permanent impairment and the danger of life with intent to rape.
After returning their unanimous verdict, the jury was told Gemmell had been convicted of rape in 1982, aged 20, and served a four-year sentence at a young offenders' institution.
It also emerged Gemmell had been charged with raping a 68-year-old woman in Inverness in 2005 and was suspected of indecently assaulting a woman in the same city in 2000, but the cases did not reach court.
And in November last year, a woman complained that Gemmell was sending her sexually explicit messages from prison while on remand for the attack on the waitress, said advocate depute Graeme Jessop.
Judge Lord Brodie made an order for a risk assessment to be carried out on Gemmell to determine whether he should face a lifelong restriction order. This would mean him serving a period in prison then being supervised for the rest of his life.
The judge said he was satisfied that Gemmell met the criteria necessary to consider protecting the public from him for the rest of his life.
Gemmell, a prisoner in Edinburgh, will return to court in August to find out his fate.
Lord Brodie said: "I will make an order requiring a risk assessment to be carried out. Whether this is a case for a lifelong restriction order will be a decision for a later date."
The full article contains 520 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
