Obese rapist in his 30s claims he couldn’t have attacked woman because his weight made it impossible

An obese rapist faces a lengthy prison sentence after a jury rejected claims that his weight prevented him from committing heinous sex crimes.

Lee Mulholland, 38, was found guilty of two counts of rape following a trial at the High Court in Livingston.

He tried to convince the jury of his innocence because if he had climbed on top of one of the women, his enormous size would have taken her breath away.

But Mulholland, from Armadale in West Lothian, was found guilty by a majority of raping one woman in 2019 and another in 2022.

He was also sentenced for a two-year course of controlling and abusive behaviour towards his first victim.

The monster hit and kicked her, pinched and twisted her skin, bent her fingers backwards, stabbed her repeatedly with tweezers, and tried to carve his name into her back with his fingernails.

Both women burst into tears as they made strikingly similar statements during the trial.

They initially described Mulholland as loving before he turned nasty and called them a series of degrading names.

The court heard he stood on the feet of both women and even attacked one of them’s dog by grabbing it by the tail, pulling it backwards and then standing on its paws.

He accused one of the women of cheating on him – even though he was in a relationship with another woman at the time.

She recounted how he sprayed her with his deodorant and told her, “You smell like a guy now, so no one is going to come near you anymore.”

He also forced her to borrow money from relatives to pay for his flashy yellow Ford Focus ST with the coveted license plate because he had lost his job shortly after buying the car.

Ironically, some of his violent acts were recorded by a Ring doorbell he had installed in her home at the time to monitor her movements.

In his defense, Mulholland claimed that the women, whose identities are unknown, had lied and that all sexual contact between them was consensual.

His defence lawyer Ian Duguid KC asked the jury: “Is it physically possible for a 195 kg man to mount a woman who is only 1.57 m tall?”

“She described him as traumatized because she couldn’t shake him off and couldn’t speak.

“He says the norm was always for her to sit on him.”

But Mulholland’s allegations did not convince the jury and they found him guilty of attacking both women.

After his conviction last month, Judge William Gallacher told him: “You have been found guilty by the jury of extremely serious offences.”

“Even if you have not been to prison before, a prison sentence is inevitable, and a severe one at that.”

Mulholland was remanded in custody and his sentence was suspended pending the availability of background reports.

The case was heard again today in the High Court in Glasgow, but judgment was further postponed because previously requested reports were not available.