Man who abducted and abused schoolgirl for 27 hours jailed for ‘abhorrent crimes’

A paedophile who abducted a young girl as she walked home and then sexually abused has been jailed at the High Court in Edinburgh for 20 years.

Andrew Miller, 53, who also uses the name Amy George, pleaded guilty to abducting and repeatedly abusing the primary school-aged child over a period of more than 24 hours.

The child was locked in Miller’s home for 27 hours, during which time she was repeatedly touched, and also forced to watch pornography.

Miller was kept in custody after his arrest on 9 February, and in May pleaded guilty to charges of abduction, sexual assault, watching pornography in the presence of the child under the age of 13, and possessing 242 indecent images of children.

He was dressed as a woman at the time he offered the child – whom he had never seen before – a lift in February, in the Scottish Borders, before taking the girl back to his house and subjecting her to repeated attacks, which a judge described as “every parent’s worst nightmare”.

The girl dialled 999 while Miller, who was wearing women’s underwear, was asleep.

The girl found the landline phone and called police, saying she had been touched inappropriately, the court heard.

Miller, who had run a butcher’s shop, claimed he offered the girl a lift “because she was freezing”, and claimed forcing her to sleep in the bed with him “was a motherly thing”.

The court heard Miller was transitioning into a woman, and at his first appearance at Selkirk Sheriff Court, his fingernails were painted red.

Miller has been held in the male prison estate following a row over the jailing of transgender rapist Isla Bryson who was sent to a female prison in February.

After his arrest, three laptops were seized from his property and a total of 242 indecent images of children were found.

Judge Lord Arthurson described Miller’s offences as “abhorrent crimes” of the utmost “deviance and depravity” which were “the realisation of every parent’s worst nightmare”.