The victim of a sick paedophile is warning mums in Aberdeen that the man who raped her “hundreds of times” has been freed from jail.
Sarah Magee was distraught to get a phone call on Thursday last week telling her John Barbour had been released that morning and that he was moving back to Aberdeen, where she lives.
Barbour, 54, has been released two-thirds of the way through a four-year sentence, which was appealed without success as too lenient by the Crown.
He was convicted in February 2018 of repeatedly raping Sarah over a period of more than a year, starting when he was 19 and she was just four.
He will celebrate his 55th birthday on Wednesday with his family around him, while Sarah is now too afraid to leave her home.
She said last night: “I can’t believe that he has the right to come and settle back in to Aberdeen where I live.
“He has already stolen my childhood and left me in bits my whole life, and now I have to look over my shoulder all the time in case I bump into him.
“I have enough bother leaving my home because of what he did to me.
“Now I know he’s back in town, I don’t know how I’ll ever set foot out my door.
“It’s not fair that men who rape can go to jail, serve their sentence and move back into the area where the people whose lives they wrecked are still living.”
She added: “That man has ruined my whole life. I’m the one doing the life sentence. His sentence was a joke.”
Sarah said she was raped hundreds of times as a tiny child by Barbour, who lodged in her mum’s house.
The first time was the night before she started school and she said the abuse was almost nightly.
Barbour was convicted of raping Sarah and of lewd and libidinous behaviour towards another child but, sentencing him to just four years in total, Lord Ericht angered Sarah by referring to his “many years of responsible adulthood”.
She said: “The Scottish justice system is a farce. Everything is loaded in favour of the accused. It was really sickening to have to stand there and listen to him being praised by the court, almost as if he was a victim too.”
Sarah has revealed that she and her family have been devastated because of the actions of more than one child abuser.
Sarah is the big sister of Scott Simpson, who was nine when he was murdered by paedophile Steven Leisk in Aberdeen in 1997.
Sarah and her siblings wrote to the Parole Board for Scotland last year ahead of Leisk’s second hearing, seeking release after completing his 20-year minimum term.
They spelled out the devastating impact
Scott’s murder still had on them and the terrible effect of the loss on their recently deceased mother. Leisk continues to be detained on his life sentence.
However, Barbour, having escaped justice for many years for his abuse of Sarah, is already free having served less time in jail than many non-violent criminals.
She said last night: “I told the police officer who called me on Thursday that they should have told me the night before he was released. What if I’d gone to the shops that day and bumped into him?
“He didn’t admit his guilt, he didn’t show any remorse and I have to assume he continued to claim he was innocent after conviction because his family stood by him.
“I don’t see how the justice system can put someone like that back into the community.
“He stole my innocence, my childhood and my happiness. I want everyone in the community to know his face and to know his name and to make sure they keep their kids well away from this sick monster.”
