Acquaintance 'tried to rape girl in his bed'

A YOUNG woman has told a court how her friend's boyfriend tried to have sex with her after a party while she was asleep.

The 20-year-old said she had agreed to share a bed with Robert Black, 22, and her female friend after the party at the Bankton House Hotel in Livingston.

She told a trial at the High Court in Livingston: "That night I had been drinking vodka and Coke, and was drunk, happy and hyper." She added: "Eventually just me, my friend and Robert went back to his. I asked Robert if I could stay with him and my friend and he said it was fine."

She went on to describe how she had been "dozing" in the same bed as Black and his girlfriend when she woke-up to find the accused trying to force himself on her.

Solicitor-advocate Brian Gilfedder, defending, suggested her main concern was what her boyfriend would think of her sleeping in another man's bed. She replied: "That's not true."

Black, 22, denies attempting to rape the woman at his home in Loch Trool Way, Whitburn, on 22 September, 2007, and attempting to rape another female in a separate alleged incident, also at his house, four months later.

The trial continues.