Paedophile John Watt QC convicted of sexual offences against four children

John Watt QC, 72, was extradited to Scotland from the US to face trial over allegations of abuse of three girls and a boy in Edinburgh over a 14-year period in the 1970s and ’80s.

He was convicted of raping one of the girls and will be sentenced next month.

The High Court in Glasgow was told that he carried out his attacks at properties in Edinburgh’s New Town and Leith as well as the west end.

He blamed the attacks on a now dead lawyer but was found guilty of five charges including raping a girl, lewd and libidinous behaviour towards a girl and a boy and indecently assaulting a third girl.

The QC left Scotland in 1996 and established a new life in Oklahoma, at his wife’s real estate agency. He was extradited in 2020.

He claimed in evidence never to have seen the victim he raped and that he had “no recollection” of the other incidents.

Lord Braid, however, told Watt: “You have been convicted of very serious offences and a custodial sentence is inevitable.”