Goodwillie in bid to overturn rape judgement
Agony for victim as case set for new hearing
FooTBALLeR David Goodwillie is to appeal against a civil court ruling that he raped a woman.
Lawyers for the 27-year-old ex-Scotland striker will today lodge legal papers seeking to have the judgment overturned.
Goodwillie was named as a rapist by Lord Armstrong in the Court of Session last month after he was successfully sued by 30-year-old Denise Clair.
The mother of one, who waived her right to anonymity, brought a civil damages case against Goodwillie and fellow ex-footballer David Robertson, 30, after the Crown office refused to press criminal charges.
Lord Armstrong ruled in her favour and ordered the men to pay her £100,000.
Now Goodwillie, who insists he had consensual sex with Miss Clair, is appealing the ruling. His solicitor Derek Stillie said: ‘There will be a motion lodged with the court on Monday. I can’t say anything about the grounds of the appeal because we are only at the very early stages.’
Miss Clair said Goodwillie and his ex-Dundee United teammate Robertson raped her in the early hours of January 2, 2011, at a flat in Armadale, West Lothian. The previous evening she had gone to a bar in Bathgate with a friend. She awoke naked, confused and with no memory of the preceding hours.
The judge ruled the footballers had committed the rape and ordered them to pay her £100,000.
He said: ‘I find the evidence for the pursuer to be cogent, persuasive and compelling.
‘Therefore, I find 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.’
The case made legal history as the first time a Scottish rape victim had successfully sued her attackers.
Miss Clair has since alleged that the players offered her up to £115,000 to drop the case, in what she saw as an attempt to ‘gag’ her.
When that failed, Goodwillie’s legal team made a vain attempt to have her legal aid withdrawn.
Last night, Miss Clair said she was ‘not surprised’ to hear of Goodwillie’s appeal.
She added: ‘It’s typical of someone who cannot admit they have done something so terribly wrong. I’m not going to give this a second
‘Cannot admit he has done wrong’
thought. I’m far too busy getting on with the rest of my life.’
Goodwillie, who had been at Plymouth Argyle, and Robertson, who had been on Cowdenbeath’s books, both quit football in the wake of the judgment.
It is unclear if Robertson, who now works as a boiler salesman, is planning to appeal.
In a statement after the judgment, Goodwillie, who married hotel spa receptionist Kirstie Smith, 24, in June last year, said: ‘As a 21-yearold I acted immaturely, naively and probably not as respectfully or with the same consideration towards someone I was with as I could have, and if that was the case I apologise. However, everything that happened that night happened consensually.
‘I would not and did not take advantage of Denise Clair and I did not rape her because she was too drunk to consent.’
Miss Clair, a former Scottish Prison Service careers adviser, said: ‘There have been dark, dark times when only [my daughter’s] cuddles and love have pulled me back from the brink of ending it all.’
She has previously said she had been left ‘devastated, upset and confused’ when she was told the men would not be prosecuted.
Controversy still surrounds that decision by the Lord Advocate in 2011.
Miss Clair’s MSP, Neil Findlay, has written to the Lord Advocate asking if that decision will be reviewed. Mr Findlay said: ‘I am calling on the Lord Advocate to hold an inquiry into this case.’