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THE furious victim of a ‘despicable’ rapist who went AWOL before his trial ended has blasted the coward - as he was jailed for eight years.
David McCue, 40, absconded before the jury returned its guilty verdicts at the High Court in Glasgow was on the run for two months.
Defence counsel Sarah Livingstone told the court that the beast, from Springboig, Glasgow, had a ‘mental health meltdown’ and camped in a forest to avoid getting caught.
But the survivor rubbished the pitiful excuses for his disappearing act which prolonged the agony for her and the child victim.
She said: “There are no forests in Springboig - it’s all complete lies.
“He’s protecting the paedophile and rapist lovers who let him stay in their homes for two months.
“Playing the mental health card is pathetic as well.
“The enormity of what he had done has hit him and he’s run away like the coward he is.”
McCue, also known as David Ross, had been found guilty of repeated attacks on a woman in the Glasgow’s Townhead and Barlanark areas including while she was asleep.
He was further convicted of sexually assaulting a girl with all the offences taking place between 2010 and 2018.
His lawyer told the High Court in Inverness: “He was intending to come but everything came crashing down.
“A juror had been excused due to her conduct - shaking her head and he formed the view that matters were not going for him.
“He was overhwelmed and scared of going to prison. He also had suicidal thoughts, went drinking that day and didn’t stop. He was at rock bottom.”
On the sex offences, Ms Livingstone said her client still protested his innocence.
She added: “There can be no mitigating factors to these offences. But there is an absence of anything analogous and there was no evidence in the trial that this was premeditated.”
Sentencing him to seven years for the sex offences and an extra year for contempt of court by failing to appear, judge Olga Pastportikov told him: “Your actions were despicable.
“You robbed a child of her innocence and left a woman thinking she was responsible.
“Both of your victims will hopefully regain some of their lives. Crimes such as yours must attract a custodial sentence.
“Turning to the question of your absconding, you remained at large for two months, acting in wilful defiance of the court’s authority.”
McCue was also placed on the sex offender list indefinitely.