Insists he followed teen to steal bike

An alleged rapist claims he followed a schoolgirl so he could steal her bicycle, a court heard yesterday.

Samuel Ciornei, 20, said he pursued the girl to a car park to carry out the theft, but he insists he didn’t steal the bike because it had a flat tyre.

He claimed he then drunkenly grabbed her jacket collar and kissed her on the mouth, but she struggled with him.

The Romanian national is accused of raping the 14-year-old girl, after making her crawl into bushes behind an Iceland supermarket near Arthurlie Street, Barrhead, on August 7, last year.

He was giving evidence at the High Court in Glasgow, where he is on trial.

The charge includes claims he took hold of her bike, grabbed the girl by the hair and then held a piece of glass at her.

He faced a separate charge of assault and robbery, but the Crown withdrew the charge and he was formally acquitted by the judge.

In evidence, Ciornei, who was living in Barrhead at the time, accepted CCTV footage captured him in a nearby Asda and at the back of a shopping centre before the incident.

Defence counsel Geoffrey Forbes asked Ciornei if he had seen the girl park her bicycle at Asda and he said he didn’t.

The jury previously saw footage of the girl going in to and coming out of Asda that evening.

Ciornei said he saw the girl walking with the bicycle and followed her, “intending to steal it”.

He described speaking to the girl and swearing at her in Romanian.

Mr Forbes asked: “Did you do something to the girl?”

Ciornei replied: “I grabbed her jacket and the collar and pulled her towards me and she was struggling.”

Asked if he did anything else, he said: “I kissed her mouth.”

He claimed that when he took hold of her, she “struggled very hard to get away”.

Ciornei was asked about footage from earlier in the trial that showed him disappearing into bushes after the girl.

He claimed the girl went into the bushes and he tried to follow her, but couldn’t fit properly.

He described at one point being “half way in, half way out” and said he struggled to move.

The accused added that the girl “managed to get out of his hands” and run away.

Ciornei denied sexually assaulting or raping the now 15-year-old.

He accepted when questioned by advocate depute Iain McSporran QC that either he or the girl must be “completely wrong” because their accounts were almost “completely different”.

When it was suggested that he was in the wrong, he replied: “Why would I lie?”

Ciornei denies the charges and the trial before judge Kenneth Maciver continues.