Former footballer jailed for six years for raping former partners

A FORMER footballer has been sentenced to six years in prison for raping three former partners.

The High Court in Glasgow. Picture: John Devlin

James Coulter was found guilty of nine charges, including rape, committed over a six-year period. The offences took place up until 2014.

The High Court in Glasgow heard how the former Albion Rovers player, 33, assaulted one woman with a Player of the Year trophy hours after winning it and threatened to publish explicit images of her and send them to her family.

The victim was a barmaid at a club in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire when she met Coulter.

Coulter’s second victim was a civil servant whom he assaulted regularly before going on to rape her.

He had filmed her performing a sex act without her knowledge, the court was told.

The woman amassed debts of around £30,000 after giving money to gambling addict Coulter.

The third woman, a nurse, was assaulted by Coulter after meeting him at a local nightclub. She was raped at a home in Blantyre in 2014.

Coulter denied the allegations and claimed his encounters with the women were consensual.

Judge John Morris QC told Coulter that he had committed a “catalogue of abuse” against the women.

Coulter, who it emerged had also assaulted another women regularly between 2001 and 2002, was snared by a Domestic Abuse Taskforce probe after the second women went to the police.

Sentence was passed at the High Court in Paisley.

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