Cleared rape accused seek change in law

Published on Friday 9 October 2009 10:52

A GROUP of men cleared by a jury of gang raping a 21-year-old woman in Bathgate have called for the law to be changed so their accuser can be named in public.

The jury today found pub bouncers Steven O'Rourke and James Hyndman not guilty of raping the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Co-accused Robert Miller and Ryan Dunn had earlier been cleared of the same charge after the Crown decided to drop proceedings against them midway through the trial.

Outside court, Mr Dunn said: "It is completely unfair that we have all been named and been made out to be animals when it was all a pack of lies.

"She is just an attention-seeker and she should be named and shamed for what she has done to us. It has ruined our lives while it has been hanging over us.

"It has affected not just us, but our families and friends as well. She should be the one in the dock for making all of this up."

The woman, from Bathgate, claimed she had been gang-raped by four men at her former home in the West Lothian town on 11 February and that they had threatened to kill her.

But the jury at the High Court in Perth preferred the men's account of the evening – that she had simply invited them all back to her home and then willingly engaged in group sex with three of them.

Mr Hyndman said: "It has been the worst eight months of my life. It's been really hard. I have had sleepless nights because it has been hanging over me all the time."

He admitted throwing the girl's TV out of the window, and said he should not have been at the flat at all as he had a girlfriend with a young baby at home.

But he said that the "victim" had been a willing participant throughout the group sex and had made up her claims afterwards because she was afraid of losing her council flat.

Mr Dunn, 17, Bathgate, and Robert Miller, 20, Edinburgh, were previously cleared after Advocate Depute Joanna Cherry told the High Court in Perth she was not seeking convictions against them.

Mr O'Rourke was found not guilty of stealing her underwear, but the jury found him guilty by a majority of breaching the peace by shouting and swearing. The Crown did not insist on him being sentenced for that offence.