Man jailed for rap!ng teenager months before she was murder3d by her brother

A man has been jailed for more than a decade for raping a teenager five months before she was killed by her brother.

Jamie Starrs, 20, attacked 16-year-old Amber Gibson while she was asleep at a home in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire, Scotland in June 2021.Five months later, in November 2021, she was sexually assaulted and murdered by her brother, Connor Gibson.

Starrs was found guilty of raping Amber following a trial at the High Court in Lanark last month. He was also convicted of raping another teenage girl in Bothwell in May 2021.  On Tuesday, August 8, Starrs was given an extended sentence of 10-and-a-half years in custody with a further two years of supervision on release.

His time in custody was reduced by six months to take into account the time hes already spent on remand.

Starrs was also found guilty of a breach of bail conditions, and of attempting to pervert the course of justice.He’s been placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

During sentencing, Judge Thomas Welsh KC said: 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.

Giving a plea in mitigation, Michael Meehan KC, representing Starrs, highlighted that as he is under 25 the sentence must take into account sentencing guidelines which reflect that a younger person will have a lower level of maturity 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 his client’s adverse childhood experiences when sentencing.He told the court that Starrs was removed from parental care at the age of three and developed addiction issues from the age of nine.

Mr. Meehan said: He has a traumatic background from a young age which perhaps gives some degree of explanation. Starrs’s sentencing comes two weeks after Ambers’s brother, 20-year-old Connor Gibson, was convicted of killing his sister. He attacked her in woodland in South Lanarkshire, taking off her clothes and sexually assaulting her with the intention of raping her before beating and strangling her.

Amber was reported missing on November 26, 2021, and her body was found two days later. Stephen Corrigan, 45, was found guilty of intimately touching and concealing Amber’s body after discovering it, instead of contacting the emergency services. Gibson and Corrigan are set to be sentenced next month.