A SERIAL rapist who targeted three teenagers as they slept has been jailed for seven years.

Matthew Ferguson attacked the girls over the course of five years at houses in Galashiels and Dundee.

The victims were said to have all been asleep and incapable of giving or withholding consent.

The 24-year-old was found guilty last month of three rapes and an indecent assault committed between 2011 and 2016.

A trial at the High Court in Edinburgh was told that Ferguson sexually assaulted his youngest victim when she was 13 and raped her after she had turned 14.

One victim, now aged 21, told the court that she first fell victim to a sex crime committed by Ferguson when she was aged 13 and staying overnight at a house in Galashiels as a guest at a party.

She later told police that Ferguson had come into the room where she was sleeping and molested her.

She said on a second occasion when she was aged 14 she had not been drinking and said: "I am a very heavy sleeper and groggy when I come to.

"It took me a minute or so to realise someone was lying on top of me."

She told officers that she felt discomfort and a burning sensation and found it slightly difficult to breathe because of the weight on her.

Defence solicitor advocate Iain Paterson told the High Court in Edinburgh: "He intends to take every opportunity afforded to him in the prison system to reduce his risk of re-offending in the future."

Judge Lady Carmichael told Ferguson that she took particular account of his age when the crimes were committed and said he was "still a child" at the time of the earliest offences.

Ferguson, of Dundee, was also placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.