A TEENAGE sex predator who abducted and raped a woman in Galashiels was jailed for six years today (Friday).

A judge told Oran O'Neill as he imprisoned him: "Galashiels is a safer place for young women to go out at night."

O'Neill was aged 19 when he carried out the sex attack on July 15 last year after taking his victim to gardens at Stirling Place.

The sex offender, now 20, of Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, had denied raping the woman, but was convicted at an earlier trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

O'Neill had come across the 21-year-old when she was drunk and sitting in a doorway.

Judge Gordon Liddle told him: "She was vulnerable and you took advantage of that."

He said that O'Neill offered to escort her and she in her drunken state misplaced her trust in him.

At one point she ran off but O'Neill caught up with her and picked her up and carried her to a garden area.

O'Neill raped the woman while she was intoxicated and unconscious and continued after she regained consciousness.

The judge told O'Neill that what he had done was "a young woman's nightmare".

He said he had read a victim impact statement and added that she was now withdrawn and suspicious when out in company.

The judge told O'Neill that the sentence he imposed reflected "the despicable crime you have committed".

O'Neill was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.