A fishing skipper from Skye who filmed his own horrific catalogue of rape and abuse of a vulnerable woman lost an appeal against his nine-year jail sentence today.
Marc Ronald’s victim found the footage he had filmed of the sex attacks on his computer and the harrowing material was shown to a jury who convicted him of two rapes and three charges of sexual assault.
Ronald shot the videos and added his own commentary as he carried out the assaults on the woman when she was either asleep or intoxicated and unconscious and stored them on his laptop.
Rapist who filmed his attacks on vulnerable woman jailed for nine years
The film was used as evidence against him when a selection of the videos were shown to a jury in a closed courtroom during trial last year.
Ronald’s counsel Claire Mitchell argued at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that the sentence imposed on him was excessive and a shorter jail term should be substituted.
But the Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, sitting with Lord Menzies and Lord Malcolm, rejected the appeal.
Lady Dorrian said there was a significant amount of video recordings showing Ronald sexually abusing the woman and she could be seen to be “obviously unconscious”.
The senior judge said a background report prepared on the rapist said he had no sense of remorse.
Lady Dorrian said: “In all the circumstances we do not consider the sentence can be described as excessive.”
The judges also rejected a challenge against his conviction on one of the charges which was amended at trial after they were satisfied that it did not alter the character of the offence.
The judge who jailed Ronald after his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh told him: “It is clear from the evidence in the case that you took advantage of the victim for your own sexual gratification.”
Lord Pentland said Ronald’s behaviour to the woman had been “degrading and humiliating” and added: “You treated her as a mere sexual object.”
The judge said the victim deserved great credit for her bravery and determination in seeing her abuser brought to justice.
During the three sexual assaults Ronald committed he dressed the woman in a nappy or plastic underwear. He filmed himself carrying out four of the sex crimes.
Lord Pentland told jurors who viewed the films that in view of the harrowing and distressing evidence in the case he would discharge them from further jury service for 15 years.
During some of the footage seen in court the stocking-clad victim was seen wearing nappies or incontinence pads and Ronald urinated on her. In another film he was seen carrying out sex acts on the woman.
The victim told the court that she was keen to access Ronald’s laptop, which he would not let her near, and managed to “hack the password” which was the name of the fishing skipper’s boat.
She said: “There were videos of me on the laptop and I was unconscious in them and I didn’t consent to any of those videos at all.”
The woman said that after she found the video clips she had confronted her abuser over them. She said: “He was trying to make out everything was OK. It was fine, pretty much what I deserved.”
Ronald, 45, of Harlosh, Dunvegan, Skye, had denied raping and sexually assaulting the woman at an address in Orkney and at a farm cottage near Dingwall between March 2011 and February 2013 while she was intoxicated, asleep and incapable of giving or withholding consent.
He maintained that he and the woman were engaged in consensual sexual role playing.
The skipper-owner of a fishing boat, who had a shellfish export business, said he had taken the videos so they could be played back and watched again.
He claimed that the woman was “fully lucid” during filmed incidents and was actually awake but was pretending otherwise.
Ronald was earlier placed on the sex offenders’ register.
