An artist who forced a girl to kill her pet gerbil with an axe has been jailed over a horrific catalogue of sexual, physical and mental abuse. Chris Maginn, a sculptor who also spent years working on community projects, tormented children and animals. A court heard he kicked pet cats, threw a kitten at a door and drove nails into a goat's head.
He also sexually abused a boy and a girl and mistreated them and another girl. He abused them mentally, leaving them scared, alarmed and anxious.
Maginn, 76, denied doing anything wrong, forcing his victims, who are now adults, to give evidence against him in a trial at Dumbarton Sheriff Court. And earlier this month he was jailed for three years for the offences after a jury convicted him of five charges spanning 1981 to 1987.
He was also placed on the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life. Maginn, of Edinburgh, began abusing the children in March 1981, at addresses in Argyll and Bute villages. He "wilfully ill-treated" the trio, assaulted the boy, sexually abused him, and sexually abused one girl.
He treated the "children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health."
The court heard he also attacked them, grabbing the boy and younger girl by the throat and pushing and throwing the boy about. He sexually abused the girl, making "inappropriate and sexual comments", having sex in front of her and making her see him naked.
She was also assaulted by him in a swimming pool in Oban, Argyll and Bute, being held against a wall, and touched by him, with him pressing his body against her. She was also made to strip and wash in front of him, was stared at while she was naked, and was touched inappropriately, before he put cream on her body.
When she was older, he continued to make inappropriate and sexual comments, stripped in front of her and made her strip. He also told her to perform sex acts on herself, tried to make her bathe with him, touched her inappropriately, tried to get her to simulate breastfeeding another child, and kissed her.
He also repeatedly sexually abused the boy, when he was aged between 10 and 13, causing the youngster to see him naked, masturbating in front of him and offering him a semen sample to view under his microscope.
Maginn also beat the boy on a number of occasions, hitting him on the head and body, leaving him injured.
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