William Rackstraw has been found guilty of raping multiple women and killing his unborn child, one month before she was due to be born. The court heard that he kneeled on the mother’s stomach whilst she was heavily pregnant. 
He was found guilty of five charges at Dundee High Court. The charges included the rape of three women over a three-year time period. 
The jury heard that Rackstraw was responsible for the ‘placental abruption’ which cut off the blood supply to the foetus. The woman told that court that she found out she was pregnant for a second time and miscarried due to another assault by Rackstraw. 
Advocate depute, Chris Fyffe, stated it was agreed that “a blood clot was found behind the placenta. The cause of death was placental abruption.”
She told the court: “He stood on my belly. I made a noise like the wind getting knocked out of you. I remember him walking over me – but putting all his weight onto one foot, onto my stomach, but he tried to laugh it off. I had a footprint on my stomach, but I never got anything checked. I miscarried. It was not until a day or two later, that’s when I began bleeding.”
Rackstraw refused to allow her to visit the hospital as he worried they would query his footprint. The woman explained that her tongue was no longer properly attached to the base of her mouth because he had forced his hand in and pulled her jaw apart during one incident. She stated that she had been raped by Rackstraw on a number of occasions and he had inflicted a broken nose, split lip, black eyes, finger marks around her jaw.
The jury also found Rackstraw guilty of raping two other women in 2018. 
 Sentence was deferred in order for a Criminal Social Work Report to be obtained. 
Lady Haldane deferred sentence until the 16th of February and stated: “You have been convicted of a series of serious offences; verbal, physical and sexual abuse of three women. Each spoke to intimidation, aggression and abuse in many forms, suffering at your hands. Given the number and severity of offences a custodial sentence is inevitable.”