Published: Friday, 17th April, 2009 11:00am

Sick rapist faces life sentence

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A MAN awaiting trial for raping a 17-year-old girl subjected his cell mate to a vicious sex attack.

Now evil James McColgan, 21, faces a possible life sentence after a judge ruled that he seemed to be a public menace.

McColgan, formerly of Craigdonald Place, Johnstone, halted an earlier trial by admitting the rape in Paisley last September and of torturing and assaulting a 17-year-old boy in Polmont Young Offenders" Institution the following month.

He was due to be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh last week.

But after reading background reports, judge Lady Dorrian said she was considering imposing an order for lifelong restriction.

That would mean keeping McColgan behind bars until the parole board consider it safe to release him then keeping him under supervision for the rest of his life.Earlier the judge heard how a teenage student was stabbed and raped by McColgan after trying to escape by running naked into a back garden.

He held her prisoner in a flat in Saucel Crescent, Paisley, where she was punched in the face, ordered to strip, made to hack off her hair then stabbed in the leg with the scissors.

When the 17-year-old tried to get her clothes, which McColgan had thrown out of a window, he confronted her again in the close and forced her back into the flat.

Advocate depute Gary Allan, prosecuting, said: 'He put a pillow over her head and was heard to say repeatedly that he was going to kill her.'

The terrified and traumatised girl was found, clutching a sheet round her, by McColgan"s mum. She was taken to hospital, saying McColgan had head-butted her, then later confided in her sister that she had been raped.

The girl"s ordeal had begun when McColgan flew into a jealous rage after finding a text message on her mobile phone from a former boyfriend, the court heard.

McColgan was arrested and sent to Polmont where he subjected a fellow inmate to a nine-hour ordeal - breaking off the torture now and again for a cigarette or a cup of tea.

The 17-year-old youth told how McColgan plunged his hand into a kettle of boiling water, burned him with a cigarette, stabbed him with a pen and made him drink water and cigarette butts from an ashtray before sexually assaulting him.

The youth said no-one came to help him during the night-time attack, in spite of his screams.

McColgan will remain in custody for further detailed reports to be prepared and is due back in court in July.