A rapist who abducted two women working as prostitutes has been jailed for nine years.

One of Kenneth Williamson's victims asked him if he was going to kill her after he raped her, and another feared she was going to die.

Williamson, 33, abducted the two women after picking them up from streets in Dundee and Edinburgh and subjecting them to terrifying ordeals.

A judge told him at the High Court in Edinburgh that his crimes were "predatory" offences committed against vulnerable victims.

Lord Turnbull said: "Each victim was subjected to a violent sexual assault involving abusive and humiliating conduct."

Williamson, from Dundee, first struck on January 5, 2016, after picking up a woman in Arbroath Road in the city.

He went on to carry out a similar attack on the second woman who had been working in Leith, Edinburgh, in April.

He had earlier denied assaulting and raping the two women during a trial but was found guilty of both offences after a jury heard statements from one of the victims, who has since died at the age of 36.

His first victim, aged 35, told the court it was only her second night on the streets when Williamson pulled up in his van and asked her if she was looking for business.

The woman, who cannot be named, said she agreed to perform a sex act on him for £40 and got in the vehicle.

She told advocate depute Graeme Jessop: "I told him to stay in the city. But he kept on driving and driving further out of Dundee.

"I was really, really worried by what he was doing. I had no idea where I was."

She said Williamson stopped at a field somewhere outside the city.

She said: "He was very intimidating. I was scared of him. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what he was going to do to me. I asked him to stop and not to do anything."

He refused to let her out the van and raped her in the back of the vehicle.

She said: "I thought I was going to die. I thought he was going to kill me."

After the attack he drove back to Dundee and the woman said she was forced out the moving van.

The second victim, who has since died, gave details of the attack on her to police at the time.

She said had been in a street near Leith police station working as a prostitute when a car appeared and believed the driver was looking to pick her up.

She got into the car and was taken to Levenhall Links leisure park in Musselburgh, East Lothian, near the racecourse.

Williamson raped her in the back of the car after telling her: "Do what I want and I won't be violent".

She said afterwards he put items back in the car and she saw a shovel.

She asked him "are you going to kill me now?" and he laughed.

The woman then asked him to take her back to where he picked her up.

She told police that during the journey he was talking about John the Baptist and not making much sense.

He told her she could go to the police but she would probably get a weekend in the cells for being a prostitute.

Williamson, a married father of three, accepted he had picked up both women to have sex with them and that he had used prostitutes before.

He claimed he was ashamed and told the court: "Of course it is something I regret."

Williamson said he had agreed a price of £65 with the woman in Dundee for full sex and oral sex but it did not occur because after he found out no condoms were available.

He further claimed he had never forced the woman he picked up in Leith her to do anything.

Defence counsel Ronnie Renucci said Williamson had been assessed as posing a medium risk and had no record for violent offending.