A serial rapist who carried out a 45-year campaign of abuse against six children left one young girl so traumatised that she tried to take her own life.

David Scott also threatened another five-year-old victim by saying he would kill her mother if she revealed what happened.

The victims of the abuse, which started in 1970 and lasted until 2015, were all aged between four and five years old when the attacks began.

Scott, from Edinburgh, was initially detained in 1997 after one young victim wrote a letter detailing the abuse but he was eventually released without charge.

Then it wasn't until 20 years later in 2017 that he was finally caught after one of his victims contacted the police.

At the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday Scott pled guilty to ten charges including rape and lewd and libidinous behaviour.

The majority of the attacks occurred at addresses in Edinburgh's Newington and Gilmerton areas where Scott stayed at the time.

He attacked his first victim in 1970 when she was five years old and continued to abuse her until she was 18.

As the girl reached her teenage years she was raped on a weekly basis by Scott who would bribe her with money to stay quiet.

When she was aged ten she tried to kill herself by attempting to overdose on sleeping tablets, then made a second attempt a few years later when she was at high school.

Scott then molested a second young girl who pretended she was asleep hoping he would go away.

His third and fourth victims were also five years old when the abuse first started.

Scott went on to target a seven-year-old girl and threatened to kill her mother if she told anyone about the abuse.

During one attack her screams were so loud a neighbour of Scott's came out to see what was wrong.

The victim believed Scott would harm her mother so did not disclose the abuse, however, she wrote a letter to her mum in 1997 that sparked a police probe.

But it wasn't long before he was free to attack his next victim who he abused for four years between the age of four and eight.

Scott's final victim was eight years old when Scott began abusing her in 2011.

The abuse lasted until 2015 when the girl was 12.

He has been remanded in custody pending sentencing next month.