A retired north-east police officer, Gordon Raeper, has been sentenced to over three years in prison following his conviction for a series of sexual offences committed against underage girls and adult women over two decades. The offences, which took place between 1984 and 2004, involved victims as young as 12 years old and were carried out while Raeper was a serving officer with Grampian Police in Aberdeen and Forres.
Raeper, aged 66 and residing in Dunshillock, Mintlaw, was found guilty at Aberdeen Sheriff Court after a trial. The jury convicted him on several charges, including two counts of wearing bondage gear and exposing himself to a 12-year-old girl between November 2000 and November 2004. Court proceedings revealed that he instructed the girl to attach chains to his wrists and ankles and place a ball-gag in his mouth. Additionally, Raeper was convicted of touching himself in the presence of a girl and attempting to make her watch an indecent video. In another incident between April 1984 and April 1985, he showed pictures from the book The Joy of Sex to an underage girl, asking if she saw 'anything she fancied', before attempting to kiss her and touch her private parts. The victim reported the matter to Grampian Police in the mid-1990s, but no investigation followed at the time.
Further convictions included one charge of extorting two women for sex. Raeper threatened to expose a woman's lesbian relationship with a co-worker unless both engaged in a threesome with him. Although he was acquitted of physical assault against two women and one charge of sexual assault, the court heard evidence of his attempts to silence victims by abusing his position as a police officer. One victim, now 33, expressed relief outside court, describing the sentence as an 'absolute shock' and stating, 'I’m just glad that he’s gone and that he is being punished – now I can hopefully feel less punished by what he did. This is now a bit of closure for me at last.' She encouraged other victims of historic sex offences to come forward.
Sheriff Ian Wallace, in delivering the sentence, emphasised the gravity of Raeper's actions. He stated, 'You were convicted of a serious course of sexual offending against females. It was offending that stretched over many years against both children and adults and included offending against visitors to your home. The evidence was clear that you committed this sexual offending for your own gratification and it was equally strikingly clear that your acts were designed to degrade your victims. Furthermore, you sought to abuse your standing within the community as a police officer in order to be able to carry out your offending and to ensure the silence of your victims.' Raeper, who also served in the Dragoon Guards during his career, hid his face as he was led away to begin his custodial sentence.
In addition to the three years and six months imprisonment, Raeper was placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and subjected to a non-harassment order preventing him from approaching his four victims for a decade. His defence counsel, Andrew Crosbie, acknowledged the passage of time and described the behaviour as 'bizarre' but not as severe as in some similar cases. However, Sheriff Wallace deemed only a custodial sentence appropriate, highlighting the lasting impact on the victims whose evidence ultimately revealed Raeper's 'true nature'.
The case was reported by The Press and Journal, with proceedings occurring in July 2022 at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. Grampian Police, now part of Police Scotland, were involved in the eventual investigation of these historic offences.