Former Inverness street trader Kim Avis is sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after being found guilty of rapes and sexual assaults
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A former Inverness street trader has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after being found guilty of rapes and sexual assaults
Kim Avis raped and molested victims during an 11-year campaign of sex crimes.
He was found guilty of a catalogue of crimes after trial at the High Court in Glasgow last month, including trying to evade justice by faking his own death after fleeing to the USA.
Avis had claimed that after "a near death experience" he had come to the view that he would not receive a fair trial.
His sentence was handed down at the High Court in Glasgow today.
Avis – also a well known busker in Inverness – should have originally stood trial in March 2019.
But the 57-year-old had instead fled to America where he was then reported missing by his teenage son.
He was said to have last been seen going for a swim at Monastery Beach in Carmel, California.
Avis was eventually caught 1300 miles away in Colorado where he was tracked down to a low-cost motel after a police stake-out in July 2019.