Goodwillie: My regret at walking out on ‘rape’ girl
Sex consensual, says footballer
SCOTTISH footballer David Goodwillie yesterday claimed in court that he regretted leaving a woman alone in a flat hours before she went to the police fearing she had been raped.
The 27-year-old said he thought the woman must have been terrified waking up alone when he left to go home after they had had sex.
The woman is now suing Plymouth Argyle player Goodwillie and his former Dundee United team-mate David Robertson for damages in a civil action, claiming she was raped by both in the early hours of January 2 in 2011. Both men deny the allegation. Yesterday, Goodwillie took the stand at the Court of Session in Edinburgh for the first time to give evidence.
He said: ‘I do regret leaving. I do think if I stayed no one would have been here today.
‘I just think waking up somewhere where you don’t know where you are, it must have been terrifying.’
He told how he and 30-year-old Robertson met the women and her friend in
‘It must have been terrifying’
Bathgate, West Lothian, and they had drinks at the town’s Glenmavis Bar before heading to a nightclub.
He admitted he was ‘probably’ drunk. He was asked if he found either of the women attractive and said: ‘Yes, I did. I thought both of them were attractive.’
Goodwillie was asked how the woman suing him seemed to him.
He said: ‘She seemed fine. She was drunk just like us, but no worse off than any of us.’
The two footballers then shared a taxi with the 30-year-old woman to a flat in nearby Armadale.
He told the court that during the taxi journey he thought the woman was ‘drunk, but was fine, speaking, in conversation’.
He said the woman went to a bedroom with his then team-mate before he joined them and the woman performed a sex act on him as Robertson had sex with her.
At some point Robertson left the room before coming back in and asked him and the woman if they were OK together and they both replied fine.
Robertson then left and Goodwillie claims he had sex with the woman. Afterwards he said he wanted to leave but claims she wanted to stay.
He added: ‘I didn’t want to leave her there either. She was having none of it and wanted to stay.’
Dorothy Bain, QC, for Goodwillie, asked if he thought at any stage the woman was not consenting to what took place. He replied: ‘No.’
The senior counsel asked him: ‘At any time did you think she was too drunk, too intoxicated to consent to what you were doing?’ He said: ‘No.’ She said: ‘Did she ever say she didn’t want to have sex with you?’ The footballer said: ‘No.’ Simon Di Rollo, QC, for the woman, asked him at what point in the evening he had formed the intention to have intercourse with her. He replied: ‘It wasn’t until I was in the room.’
He asked the player if he had no intention of having sex with her when they were in the taxi and he replied: ‘No.’
Mr Di Rollo said: ‘Did you say in the taxi “I have got to do my duty”?’
The footballer said: ‘No. I don’t remember saying that.’
Goodwillie, who married earlier this year, told the court that he and Robertson had played for Dundee United in a New Year game on January 1 against Aberdeen that year.
He said he would say he was doing well with Dundee United as a 21year-old at the time and thought he might have left in the transfer window that January but did not.
The player was subsequently not prosecuted. The woman is suing Goodwillie and Robertson after raising a £500,000 damages claim. The court was told that the amount of compensation to be paid to the woman if she succeeds in the action has been agreed.
The woman alleges that both men raped her at a flat in Armadale. It is claimed that she was incapable because of the effect of alcohol of giving free agreement at the time when intercourse took place.
Goodwillie and Robertson, of Bathgate, deny the allegation and maintain that intercourse was consensual. Neither was prosecuted.
The hearing continues.