Student ‘ambassador’ jailed for raping woman

● Burns sentenced to five years after raping student he met via Tinder

A student “ambassador” who boasted he was going to have sex with 100 women at his university was has been jailed for five years for raping a student.

Duncan Burns, 24, was supposed to help vulnerable students as an accommodation liaison officer at Stirling University.

But Burns forced himself on a 20-year-old student after meeting her via Tinder. He has claimed the sex was consensual and continues to protest his innocence.

But yesterday at the High Court in Glasgow, judge Lord Mulholland told him: “You ignored this woman’s wishes and raped her. This court takes a very serious view of this. You are sentenced to five years in prison.”

He also placed Burns on the sex offenders’ register.

The victim admitted she had gone back to his room willingly

0 Duncan Burns was an accommodation liaison officer at Stirling University a number of times and had wanted a relationship with him. But she consistently refused his demands to have sex with him – and told him “No” repeatedly as he forced himself on her.

She said: “I always perceived rape to be more like with a stranger or with violence. I knew I’d said no and he knew I was saying no. I had no doubts in my mind, but don’t think at the time I knew it was rape.”

The jury at the High Court in Livingston heard evidence that another woman who also had sex with Burns went to the police with an almost identical account of being abused physically, verbally and sexually before being raped. But they found him not guilty by a majority verdict of twice raping the second woman.

Asked by defence counsel Mark Stewart QC if she was pressing Burns to have a relationship with her, she replied: “Sometimes he would say he wanted to sleep with 100 women and then he would commit to me.”

He also told her that when she was famous and on the television, he would say: “Oh, I took her virginity.”

Of the rape, she said: “I remember it hurting and I told him that it was hurting. He didn’t stop. It didn’t change anything. He just carried on.”

The jury heard the woman was in a “distressed state” when she told friends and university officials.

Burns, 24, of Birkhill, Angus, lodged special defences claiming any sexual contact was with the women’s consent.

Mr Stewart said: “Mr Burns position is that he is innocent of this charge. There are no winners in this case. This has affected both parties’ lives.”

The QC told the court that Burns had had a difficult childhood and wanted to help others. He added: “That career path is now lost, as is his university career. He was a second-year student on an honours course.”