Man who raped Amber Gibson before she was sexually assaulted again and murdered by her brother jailed
8 August 2023, 11:29
A man who raped a teenage girl before she was sexually assaulted and murdered by her own brother has been jailed for for ten years and six months.
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Jamie Starrs, 20, attacked 16-year-old Amber Gibson and raped her while she was asleep or unconscious in June 2021 in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire in Scotland.
Starrs also raped another teenage girl a month earlier in Bothwell.
Amber was murdered by her brother Connor Gibson, 20, in woodland in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, on November 26 2021.
Judge Thomas Welsh KC handed Starrs an extended sentence made up of 10 and a half years in custody and two years of supervision upon release at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
The judge told Starrs: "You have been convicted of appalling crimes against two innocent teenage girls and you have been assessed as being of very high risk of sexual violence on release.
"I am required to take into account your age and difficult upbringing. However, the crimes remain serious and grave, and I will impose an extended sentence."
The judge said he would have given Starrs 11 years but for the time he had already spent on remand.
Starrs was also found guilty of breaching bail conditions and attempting to pervert the course of justice. He has also been added to the sex offenders' register.
Giving a plea in mitigation, Michael Meehan KC, representing Starrs, highlighted that as he is under 25 the sentence must reflect Scottish sentencing guidelines that say a younger person is less mature than an older person.
He said a report identified that Starrs shows "cognitive and emotional immaturity".
The lawyer had also urged the judge to consider Starrs' difficult childhood. He was taken away from his parents aged three and has been an addict since the age of nine.
Mr Meehan said: "He has a traumatic background from a young age which perhaps gives some degree of explanation."
Starrs' conviction comes after Amber was strangled and sexually assaulted by her brother.
Gibson denied the attack but was found guilty in July after a jury found him guilty on a combination of CCTV and DNA evidence, including his bloodstained jacket.
Stephen Corrigan, 45 was found guilty of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by intimately touching and concealing Amber's body after discovering her at some point in the following two days, instead of contacting the emergency services.
