A north-east man who kicked his pregnant wife in the stomach has been jailed for almost four years.
William Scougall, 40, committed the shocking act as part of a campaign of violence spanning years.
And yesterday at Aberdeen Sheriff Court Sheriff Graeme Napier slammed Scougall’s behaviour as “appalling” and ordered him to be caged for a total of 47 months.
He also imposed a 12-month supervised release order and granted five-year non-harassment orders in relation to two of Scougall’s exes.
Depute fiscal Colin Neilson previously told the court that in April 2009 Scougall’s wife was three months pregnant when he “pinned her to the bed”, spat in her face and “tried to drag her on to the floor”.
He said: “The accused then raised a foot and kicked her stomach three or four times.
“She shouted repeatedly, ‘stop it, remember I’m pregnant’.”
Scougall, a prisoner of HMP Grampian, pled guilty to assault over that incident at an earlier hearing.
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He also admitted two charges of assault to injury and one of abduction and assault to injury involving the same woman.
Scougall pled guilty to assault to injury over an attack on a male on February 11 on Bridge Street, Ellon, in which he punched the man, causing him to fall to the ground, then kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious.
He also admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by challenging police to fight, struggling with them and making offensive remarks and threats in the wake of the assault.
Scougall further admitted sending a threatening text message to a man on May 29 and to assaulting another woman – who was an ex-partner – on June 2 by punching her repeatedly to the head and seizing her by the neck to her severe injury.
Defence agent Gail Wiggins said her client had previously had a drug problem but was now clean.
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