A double rapist was jailed for 10 years today after his brutality towards pregnant women endangered the lives of their unborn children.
Hugh McPhee carried out a catalogue of abuse against victims during which he assaulted expectant mothers.
But McPhee was sent to prison still maintaining that he did not commit the offences.
McPhee (56) kicked down a bathroom door as one woman took refuge there to escape from him and after it fell on top of her he jumped on the door.
The former cinema projectionist also repeatedly kicked and punched the woman, threw a cup of tea over her and rubbed her face in a sandwich.
McPhee, of Thriepland Place, Spittal, in Caithness, had earlier denied a string of charges during a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh but was convicted of nine offences including assault, rape, indecent assault and indecent behaviour.
The offences against two women occurred between 1980 and 2002.
He told his trial that one of the women had struck him on the head with a poker and said: “She lifted the poker and said she was going to hit me.”
McPhee denied he had taken a poker to the woman and when asked by his counsel Herbert Kerrigan QC: “Are you a hot-tempered individual?” he replied: “No.”
McPhee began abusing his second victim when she was an underage teenager and forced her to perform sex acts on him in Thurso.
He later raped the woman at houses in Wick.
One witness told the court that he had heard McPhee lose his temper and saw one of his female victims with a black eye.
Kerrigan told the court that McPhee’s position was that he did not commit any of the offences.
The defence counsel said that the charges he was convicted on were grave.
Judge Nigel Morrison QC told McPhee: “You have been found guilty of a number of charges of physical and sexual abuse. There is no alternative to a custodial sentence.”
He told McPhee that he would be placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.