Scots QC given 10 years for child sexual offences
A Scottish QC and former prosecutor has been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for five charges involving the sexual abuse of children, in offences committed between 1973 and 1987.
John Watt QC, now aged 72, was sentenced by Lord Braid in the High Court at Edinburgh after his conviction in a trial that took place last month. He had denied the charges and blamed another lawyer, now dead.
Three of the offences were committed while Watt was a practising advocate. For a time he was an advocate depute, prosecuting offences of the type for which he was convicted. Since 1995 he has lived with his wife in Oklahoma, from where he was extradited to stand trial.
Summarising the offences before passing sentence, Lord Braid told Watt: “Charges 1 and 2 involved the rape and other vile sexual abuse, on a single occasion, of your victim, who was taken to you for that very purpose. Her precise age at the time was not entirely clear on the evidence but on any view she was under 12 years of age. Charges 3 and 4 involved the sexual abuse of two young girls, then aged about seven and 10 respectively, in their own beds. You had been invited into their home by their parents and those offences therefore involved a breach of trust. It is unclear whether that offending was opportunistic or also involved a degree of planning, given that you were often in the parents’ home. Charge 5 was the rape of a 10 year old boy who, on his evidence, which the jury must have accepted, had been left in your overnight care by his parents. As such that offence involved a gross breach of trust.”
He added that the victim statements from the complainers in the first four charges “speak eloquently” of the lasting impact and harm the offending had had.
Noting that Watt, a first offender, maintained his denial of guilt, he added: “Perhaps that explains why you have not demonstrated any remorse, nor empathy towards your victims.” In selecting the appropriate sentence, Lord Braid said the offences “were of the utmost seriousness and depravity”, spanned more than 10 years, and were aggravated by involving an abuse of trust, and in the case of at least charges 1 and 2, some degree of planning. In each case, the offences have had a profound and lifelong effect on the victims. The impact on the victims was also a factor.
The appropriate headline sentence was 11 years, but allowance would be made for 192 days spent on remand in the USA and this country. The sentence covered all five charges together and was backdated to 5 July 2022.
Watt will also remain subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as a sex offender.
Defence counsel Donald Findlay QC said Watt would be appealing against his conviction.