A man has been found guilty of four charges of rape against teenage girls.
Ruaridh Gilmour, 23, had denied the charges, claiming one of his accusers consented, and that the incidents described by two other witnesses simply did not happen.
But the jury at the High Court in Inverness took just over two hours to decide that the victims, now young women, were telling the truth.
In closing speeches to the jury, prosecutor John McElroy had labelled Gilmour’s assertion that his accusers were lying “a fairly desperate claim by a fairly desperate man”.
Jury rejected ‘false allegations claim’
He said the defence case appeared to be that “three different young women have made false allegations of rape against him”.
“He asks you to accept that these women have told lie after lie,” Mr McElroy said.
Jurors had also heard a concession from the accused that he had been “an angry young man” at the time of the alleged attacks due to have having been bullied during his school years.
He denied having taken his frustrations out on his accusers.
Gilmour insisted all contact with the first witness had been consensual.
“She agreed every time, she would kiss me back, or hold me, or hold my hand,” he said.
Asked if he had drawn blood while biting her, Gilmour replied: “A couple of occasions by accident, it was nothing I intended to do.”
In his own closing speech defence advocate Jim Keegan QC reminded the jury that electronic messages had come to light during the course of the trial in which one of the witnesses said she wanted to change her statement because she had “over-exaggerated”.
He pointed out that Gilmour and one of the complainers had grown up in the internet age “which puts daft ideas into kids’ minds”.
‘Regret is not a lack of consent’
He said they were “Two kids […] getting involved in sexual stuff that they probably now both regret. Regret isn’t a lack of consent. Regret is just regret.”
Gilmour was found guilty by majority of four charges of rape relating to incidents that occurred between 2014 and 2019.
The jury returned majority verdicts of not guilty to two charges of assault that had been alleged to have occurred during the same period.
Speaking after the verdict, defence advocate Jim Keegan told Judge Graham Buchanan that he had concerns about his client’s mental health, and revealed that Gilmour was believed to be suffering from PTSD following “an incident that he had with a dead body in a river a number of years ago”.
His request that Gilmour be allowed to remain on bail for medical assessments was refused by the judge, who said: “Ruaridh Gilmour in the course of the trial you pled guilty to certain sexual offences and although they are in themselves a serious matter the charges of rape of which you have been found guilty by the jury today are considerably more serious.
“I accept that when you committed the earlier offences you were very young indeed, but of course, the last of these rapes was committed between December 2018 and April 2019 when you were considerable older, although still a young man.
“Your counsel has recognised that given the very serious nature of the charges a custodial sentence is well nigh inevitable.
“I take the view, particularly in light of the fact that it is acknowledged that a prison sentence is inevitable, bearing in mind the serious nature of the charges involving three separate young girls.
“Accordingly you will be remanded to custody.”
He adjourned the case to August 12 at the High Court in Aberdeen for the preparation of pre-sentencing reports and made Gilmour, of Pitglassie, Dingwall, immediately subject to the notification requirements of the sexual offences act 2003.
