A SERIAL abuser has been convicted of attacking and threatening a former partner - but a jury has cleared him of raping her.

A jury at the High Court in Glasgow found David Millard, 38, guilty last week of two charges against the woman, whose identity is protected by law.

But the jury found him not guilty of four charges accusing him of raping the woman at addresses in Helensburgh, Rosneath and Cove between 2012 and 2014.

Three further charges were found not proven.

These alleged that Millard had raped a second woman multiple times at a property in Dumbarton, and that he attempted to rape her at the same address, between April 2016 and January 2017.

In August 2017 Millard, listed in court papers as a resident of George Street, Alexandria, was sentenced at Dumbarton Sheriff Court to three years in prison on separate charges of subjecting the same two women to months of extreme stalking.

Woman A told Millard’s trial at the High Court in Glasgow that she was first raped by Millard in June 2011.

She said: “I begged him to stop. He would not stop.”

She described a second alleged attack after she had a suspected miscarriage, telling the court: “I did not consent. We were arguing about the miscarriage, about it being my fault.

“I was trying to kick him and shove him - he is stronger than me.

"I remember begging him not to.

“I stopped fighting and he finished and left and got up and dumped his clothes in front of the washing machine.”

In another alleged incident, she told the court Millard had scooped handfuls of thrown-out mushroom stir-fry into her mouth while holding her down and raping her.

She said that when Millard drank, he had an angry attitude and his “eyes go darker and glazed”.

Woman A was asked why she didn’t tell the police about all the alleged rapes when she first spoke to them.

She said: “It’s difficult to say it out loud. It’s degrading and shameful, and I felt like it was my fault.

"I wanted to shut myself away. I wanted to die.”

The witness said Millard told her it was not rape, and that she was “asking for it - he made me ask”.

But she insisted: “I was not consenting, but he said it was not rape if I asked.

"He thought it was hilarious. He used to laugh so much.”

Millard had lodged special defences with the court that the sex with Woman A and Woman B was consensual.

Giving evidence, Millard said he had been an alcoholic and a binge drinker.

Asked whether he had ever raped either complainer, or thrown items at Woman A and threatened to kill her, he said: “No, I did not.”

The jury accepted his defence that the sex was consensual and that he had not thrown items.

Millard was convicted of assaulting Woman A on various dates between March 1, 2011 and November 5, 2014, at properties in Airdrie, Helensburgh, Rosneath. Cove and elsewhere.

That charge stated that he seized hold of her body, dragged her by her body, pushed her on the body, punched and struck her on the head, pinned her against a couch, struggled with her and struck her on the body with a baton, all to her injury.

The jury also found him guilty of shouting and swearing at the same woman on the same dates and locations, and also at properties in Clydebank and Dumbarton, as well as behaving aggressively, damaging household items, throwing items within the properties, sending threatening and abusive messages to Woman A, directing derogatory comments towards her, and uttering threats.

One witness described hearing Millard “swear at her, tell her that she was basically nothing without him”.

And a friend to whose home Woman A had fled said Millard had called her various names.

She said: “It broke her, to the point that she’s not the same person.”

The witness rejected defence suggestions it was “just normal arguments between a couple”.

A charge that Millard consumed drugs in the presence of and while having care of two children was dropped by the Crown during the trial.

Prosecutor Chris McKenna told the court Millard had previous convictions for assault with a knife in 2012 and for threatening or abusive behaviour in 2017.

Sentence was deferred until next month.