TWO dog walkers have told a court they confronted a man they saw dragging a “hysterical” woman towards a car on the outskirts of a Highland town.
Sharon Burns and Nicola Hay were giving evidence on the opening day of the trial of a Caithness man accused of assault and abduction.
Forty-seven-year-old George McPhee is alleged to have held Nicole Calder in a vehicle against her will and telling her she would be taken to Wick.
Ms Burns, 30, from Tain, told Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday that the woman she saw beside a car parked in the Scotsburn junction at Tain said she was “scared that he would try and kill her”.
Ms Burns, told the court she had been walking her dog with friend Ms Hay, 26, when they noticed a car with the passenger door lying open.
Ms Burns described seeing a man in the driver’s seat with his head slumped forward.
The two walked towards a wall with a gap in it intending to return to Tain, but said they then met a man and woman.
Ms Burns told the jury: “I saw the man dragging a woman in the direction of the car.
“He had his hands underneath her shoulders.
“She was clearly struggling. She was crying and screaming.”
Ms Burns said they came within a few yards of the struggling pair and had been close enough to smell alcohol.
The two dog walkers continued past the couple, but then turned back after hearing voices getting louder.
Ms Burns said: “We didn’t stop immediately but as we walked away her cries got louder.
“We thought something must be wrong so we turned around.”
Ms Hay, also from Tain, told fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart that they had then approached the pair.
She said: “I said ‘Hello, is everything ok?’ and he let her go.
“We talked to the girl to check that she was alright. She was obviously very distressed.”
She told the jury that the woman had been “hysterical” and told her and Ms Burns that she was from Inverness and did not know where she was.
Ms Hay told the court that when they led the woman away, the man said: “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
When asked by Mr Urquhart about the tone of the statement, Ms Hay said: “It was like an order, it was not said in a friendly way.”
The court heard that while the dog walkers talked to the woman, who they said told them her name was Nicole, the man stood against the wall and did not say anything.
Both women identified McPhee as the man they confronted.
The witnesses also said they had never met “Nicole” or McPhee before.
Ms Burns told the court: “She said that she was scared that he would try and kill her”
When asked by McPhee’s solicitor Ian Warburton about whether the man had shown any aggression, Ms Burns said: “Not that I remember.”
McPhee, of 2 Murchison Street, Wick, denies that in various Inverness streets and on the A9 road between Inverness and Tain, while acting with an unknown second person, he abducted Nicole Calder, detained her in a locked car and told her she would be taken to Wick, all against her will on January 18 last year.
He also denies assaulting the same woman by chasing after her, seizing her by the arms and struggling with her at Scotsburn junction near Tain.
The trial, before Sheriff Jamie Gilchrist, continues.