A former butcher who sexually abused a primary school pupil over 27 hours in a “nauseating” attack has been jailed for 20 years.
Andrew Miller, who also uses the name Amy George, was dressed as a woman when he offered the girl – whom he had never met before – a lift in February.
In what a judge described as “every parent’s worst nightmare”, Miller took the girl back to his home in the Scottish Borders and subjected her to repeated sexual assaults.
She was locked in Miller’s home for 27 hours, during which time she was touched repeatedly and forced to watch pornography. She dialled 999 after Miller, 53, who was wearing women’s underwear, fell asleep.
Miller told police he had offered the girl a lift “because she was freezing”, and claimed forcing her to sleep in the bed with him “was a motherly thing”.
After his arrest, three laptops were seized from his property and 242 indecent images of children were found.
At the high court in Edinburgh in May, Miller pleaded guilty to charges of abduction, sexual assault, watching pornography in the presence of a child under the age of 13 and possessing 242 indecent images of children.
Sentencing Miller, Judge Lord Arthurson said: “The narrative was frankly nauseating in terms of its depravity and criminal sexual deviancy. On your arrest you denied the abduction and preposterously said you had acted in a motherly way.
“Abduction of young children for the purposes of sexual torment is a mercifully rare crime in this jurisdiction.”
The judge said Miller dressing as a woman was an aggravating factor because it was unlikely that the girl would have got into his car if Miller had presented as a man.
Arthurson told Miller his “primary focus” throughout had been himself and that, while he showed an understanding of the impact his crimes had on the wider public, it was “limited” in terms of the child.
During interviews with a risk assessor, Miller, who previously ran a butcher’s shop, “even attempted to place responsibility on [his victim]”, the judge said. “You told the assessor you went into business mode, ‘trying to think of a plan’.”
The court was told that Miller, who is being held in a men’s prison, is in the process of gender transitioning.
Earlier, the judge described Miller’s offences as “abhorrent crimes” of the utmost “deviance and depravity” that were “the realisation of every parent’s worst nightmare”.
