Scots golfer fails in bid to have rape conviction overturned

Graham Gordon was jailed for five years after sexually assaulting a vulnerable woman he met in an Aberdeen nightclub in August 2001.

But the 55-year-old has always denied the attack and claims it was consensual sex.

He launched legal action against the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Scottish Government last year seeking £695,000 compensation amid claims of “gross negligence”.

But a sheriff has now ruled against Gordon and the case has been closed, although the former golfer can appeal the decision.

Gordon was jailed in 2002 after he was found guilty of raping a 43-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, at his home in the Bridge of Don area of Aberdeen.

The golfer, who turned professional at the age of 16, dragged the woman on to his living room floor, pulled her clothes off and had sex with her, despite her protests.

At his trial Gordon told the jury he could not clearly remember what had happened that night because he had slept with 15 women in the previous fortnight.

But he insisted that the woman was a willing partner.

He told detectives assigned to the case that he had sex with at least 32 women in three months and could not remember some of the details of the incident at his flat because he had slept with three women that weekend.

Gordon was jailed following the trial at Stonehaven Sheriff Court.

He launched an appeal to clear his name claiming he had defective legal representation while in jail but the case was thrown out in 2004.

The following year he approached the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) in an attempt to reopen his case.

The case was referred to the high court on the basis that police enquiry errors and other “irregularities” may have undermined the fairness of his trial.

His case was put before the SCCRC again in 2011 but the review commission decided that it was not in the interests of justice to refer the case back to court.