Justice! Mum wins six-year fight to prove footballers raped her
Court footballers rules attacked mum and tells pair to pay her £100,000 ... as she’s FINALLY believed following a SIX-YEAR battle for justice
A WOMAN was yesterday awarded £100,000 in damages after a judge found she was raped by two Scottish footballers who had previously avoided a criminal trial.
In the first civil rape case of its kind north of the Border, Denise Clair sued former Scotland international striker David Goodwillie, 27, and his then Dundee United colleague David Robertson, 30, claiming they raped her.
Miss Clair, 30, was ‘devastated’ when the Crown did not prosecute after the incident at a flat in Armadale, West Lothian, following a night out in January 2011. The mother of one – who previously waived her right to anonymity – said she could not remember what happened after being in a Bathgate bar.
She woke up in a strange flat, naked and in pain, the following morning.
She originally sought £500,000 compensation, but damages were agreed at £100,000 in the civil action at the Court of Session.
In his judgment yesterday, Lord Armstrong said: ‘Having carefully examined and scrutinised the whole evidence in the case, I find the evidence for the pursuer to be cogent, persuasive and compelling.
‘In the result, therefore, I find that in the early hours of Sunday, January 2, 2011, at the flat in Armadale, both defenders took advantage of the pursuer when she was vulnerable through an excessive intake of alcohol and, because her cognitive functioning and decision-making processes were so impaired, was incapable of giving meaningful consent; and that they each raped her.’
Miss Clair, who was 24 at the time, was ‘devastated, upset and confused’ when she was told the men would not be prosecuted.
After the judgment, she said: ‘I am pleased by today’s verdict. However, I am bitterly disappointed I was so badly let down by the criminal justice system and was forced to seek a remedy through the civil court.
‘If it was not for the support of my lawyer Cameron Fyfe and the team at Rape Crisis Scotland, I do not know how I could have coped throughout this long, harrowing journey.’
Mr Fyfe said: ‘I am delighted for Denise. She has shown great courage throughout the case. Her determination may encourage other victims who feel they have been let down by the criminal system to turn to the civil court for a remedy.’
Goodwillie and Robertson both maintain they had consensual sex with their accuser.
Miss Clair, a former Scottish Prison Service education adviser, said she remembers going to the Glenmavis Tavern in Bathgate on the evening of January 1, 2011. She remembers meeting Robertson there, but has no memory of Goodwillie.
They then left to go to Chalmers nightclub in the town.
Her next recollection was waking up the following morning in a house she did not recognise. She was naked and could not find her clothes.
Robertson and Goodwillie went to the tavern on the evening of January 1 after playing for Dundee United against Aberdeen earlier in the day. Goodwillie had scored an equalising goal in the 95th minute of the match.
‘She couldn’t stand, she couldn’t speak’
He maintained that he did not think the woman was too drunk to consent to sex.
But a security firm employee working at the nightclub told the court the woman was in need of an ambulance. Gayle McGregor said: ‘She wasn’t in control of herself. Her eyes were rolling in her head. She couldn’t stand up straight. She couldn’t speak to me properly. She wasn’t compos mentis.’
Lord Armstrong heard from 20 witnesses and rejected evidence relied on by the players that the woman was not particularly affected by alcohol and was no more drunk than anyone else in the company.
The judge said of former Blackburn Rovers and Aberdeen striker Goodwillie: ‘The first defender was not an impressive witness. Particularly in relation to his assessment of the pursuer’s condition, his evidence was given with a view to his own interests rather than in accordance with the oath which he had taken.
‘I did not find his evidence to be persuasive.’
Of Robertson, he said: ‘Like the first defender, I assessed the second defender as a witness who was being selective as to what he was prepared to tell the court and whose evidence, directed as it was entirely to his own interests, was partial and partisan.
‘He also did not present as a witness who was being entirely candid. On the significant issues arising in the case, I did not find his evidence to be credible or reliable.’
Lord Armstrong said of the impact on Miss Clair of the Crown’s decision not to prosecute: ‘She found the decision difficult to understand and had felt that she had not been believed. She felt her life had been destroyed by something which had happened although, because of her lack of memory, she was not fully aware of what it was that had caused that effect.’
He said that she had enjoyed life before the incident but that her life changed following the decision not to proceed with the prosecution.
She had experienced suicidal thoughts and it was only last year that she felt comfortable forming an intimate relationship again.
Lord Armstrong said: ‘She maintained emphatically that she would never voluntarily have had sexual intercourse with two men simultaneously and that she had never, ever done that before.
‘As she put it, she would never, ever agree to do that.’
The judge said Miss Clair’s memory loss was best explained by ‘the phenomenon of alcoholic blackout’.
She said she had no recollection of leaving the pub for the nightclub. She told the court of waking the next morning: ‘I seemed to be running about the house in a panic. I ran into
every single room to see if I could make sense of my surroundings.’
Miss Clair’s senior counsel, Simon Di Rollo, QC, asked her what she was wearing.
She replied: ‘Nothing. I was naked, but I didn’t realise that until I was in the kitchen.’
She added: ‘I just felt sore. I felt sore inside as if something had happened to me, but I couldn’t say what it was. I felt a lot of pain inside.
‘I kind of thought something must have happened to me but I had no idea what. I didn’t know where I was.’
It was only in the weeks after the rape that Miss Clair knew with certainty that intercourse had taken place, after DNA evidence was obtained from swabs taken from her.
A the Court of Session in October, Goodwillie said he regretted leaving Miss Clair alone in the flat hours before she went to the police, fearing she had been raped.
He admitted that he thought she must have been terrified waking up alone when he had left to go home after they had had sex.
He added: ‘I do regret leaving. I do think if I stayed no one would have been here today.’
Goodwillie now plays for Plymouth Argyle in England’s League Two.
In a statement yesterday, the club said: ‘We note today’s judgment from the Court of Session in Edinburgh regarding David Goodwillie. We await
‘Running about the house in a panic’
the full report, which we will consider in detail before making any comment.
‘Until such time, David Goodwillie will not be selected to play for Plymouth Argyle.’
Robertson currently plays for Scottish League Two side Cowdenbeath.
A club spokesman said: ‘At present, we can make no further comment until we have the full details available for us to consider and review.
‘In the interim, David Robertson will not be considered for selection.’
Mr Di Rollo said: ‘It was incredibly brave of Miss Clair to have brought the action, in which, unlike in a criminal case, she did not enjoy anonymity.
‘The case illustrates the importance of the 2009 Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act, which clearly spells out that free agreement to sexual activity cannot be given while a person is incapable because of the effect of alcohol.
‘The court accepted that Miss Clair was incapable and that anyone dealing with her would have known that.’
He added: ‘Miss Clair was able to vindicate herself only because of the availability of legal aid, and it shows how vital it is in a modern society that the civil courts should be accessible.
‘I am grateful that the police investigation was so thorough and that the evidence was preserved, allowing the case to proceed.’