The Law Killers by Alexander McGregor Page A

find as just the actions of an anxious man brought in for a minor offence. Had they been aware of their prisoner’s history and the chilling echoes of the last time he had used a knife for a murderous sexual spree in a house where a mother and daughter were alone in the early hours, they might have viewed matters differently. That same knowledge would certainly have unnerved the two women in the cottage far beyond their most fearful imaginings.
    Surprisingly, Smith was again treated unexpectedly lightly at his subsequent court appearance. Although on licence from a life sentence, he was jailed for just three months, a term which seems inconceivably lenient considering the marked similarities to the circumstances of his crimes some 20 years previously. One explanation may be that the sheriff dealing with the case was unaware of the ghastly background to the crimes which had led to Smith’s long confinement in Peterhead.
    If that is the case, the judge’s ignorance was nothing to that of the next innocent victim who was to receive the attention of the killer rapist.
    Some three years later, on the evening of 3 February 2006, Smith surfaced once more to become the centre of a police hunt – and again it was for terrorising a woman.
    A slightly built lady doctor was loading shopping into the passenger side of her vehicle in a supermarket car park near Broughty Ferry when she was suddenly seized from behind by two powerful hands grabbing her round the waist. The attacker pinned her arms to her side and, in the darkness of the isolated area, dragged her round the vehicle. She screamed but the few late night shoppers who heard her, dismissed the incident as a domestic squabble and went about their own business.
    Seconds later, her panting assailant had opened the driver’s door and bundled her into the seat after placing one hand round her throat and the other over her mouth. He got into the car with her, at first sitting on his helpless victim then ordering her to move over into the passenger seat. Then he ripped the car keys from her hand. Despite her fear, the 41-year-old victim continued to struggle. She attempted to escape by opening her passenger door but was propelled back into her seat by an arm across her throat. When she tried to shout out, the broad-shouldered man with the pale eyes roughly stifled her call for help. ‘Don’t do that. Stop doing that,’ he instructed, the quietness of his words adding to the menace. But even after he had started the engine, the woman found unexpected courage to continue her fight. She managed to pull the keys from the ignition and, fighting off his attempts to pin her back in her seat, succeeded in switching on the car’s hazard warning lights and sounding the horn. Other shoppers paused in their haste to get out of the cold of the February evening and looked curiously towards the vehicle. But once more they discounted the disturbance as a minor family row where outside interference might not be appreciated.
    Perhaps because of the attention her actions were starting to attract in the car park, or maybe thanks to her surprising pluck, the situation suddenly changed. The aggression slipped away from the man in the driver’s seat and he slowly opened his door and began backing out of the vehicle. Then in an urgent, raised voice he pleaded, ‘I really need your help. I’m really desperate. I really need your help.’
    The woman who had been his prisoner until a moment before but who had somehow taken control of the situation, asked what help he required.
    ‘I really need to get to Lochee,’ he said, naming the suburb several miles away at the opposite end of town and where his notoriety had started two decades earlier.
    Calmly she replied, ‘I can’t take you there. You’ve really scared me. You know I can’t take you there.’
    Her firm response seemed to be all that was required to drain the last traces of aggression from her captor. Without another word he slid out of the