A man told a jury yesterday that he would have let a woman he is accused of abducting out of his car if he had known that she was uncomfortable.
George McPhee, 47, was giving evidence in his own defence at Inverness Sheriff Court.
He told the court that the woman, 23-year-old Nicole Calder, had been invited to “go out drinking” in Wick before she got in McPhee’s car in Inverness.
McPhee was in the passenger seat, while the car was being driven by his friend, Alistair Budge.
Unemployed McPhee said that he had known Miss Calder for more than a year and had drunk with her on several occasions.
Defence solicitor Ian Warburton asked McPhee: “Were you quite clear that she would be going to Wick?”
McPhee said: “If she wasn’t happy going to Wick she wouldn’t have got in the car.”
He told the court that the car doors were not locked and he would have had the car stopped if he felt that Miss Calder didn’t want to be there.
McPhee said that the car had stopped at Scotsburn Junction near Tain because Miss Calder felt sick, and had vomited into his hat before getting out of the car.
Miss Calder got out of the car when it stopped at Tain and ran across the A9 towards the town.
She claimed in her evidence McPhee chased her and grabbed her in an attempt to return her to the car.
However, McPhee said he was trying to escort her back to the car “for her own safety”.
He said: “I had no intention to hurt anybody.”
Fiscal depute Roderick Urquhart suggested to McPhee that he was in control and had told the driver Mr Budge what to do. McPhee denied this.
Mr Urquhart said: “You saw a young woman with a drink problem. She was hungry, had no money and liked a drink.
“You thought she would have been anybody’s for the price of a bottle of vodka.
“You were going to get her in the car and you were going to use her.”
McPhee replied: “No, no, no.”
McPhee, of 2 North Murchison Street, Wick, denies that in various Inverness streets and on the A9 between Inverness and Tain, while acting with another, 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 continues.