Seven-year-old ‘helped save mum from rapist’

A WOMAN has described to a court how her seven-year-old daughter tried to save her from an alleged rapist.

The mother, 36, said she was attacked in her bedroom while the girl slept in an adjacent room.

“She entered the room because she heard me screaming …she punched him … she was shouting, ‘Get away from my mummy’,” the woman told a jury.

She added that she and her daughter managed to get the man out of the flat and she then immediately called the police.

Under cross-examination, the woman denied that her allegations were “a pack of lies”.

Shaun McGuire, 35, of Craigmillar Castle Gardens, Edinburgh, denies assaulting and raping the woman in her home in the capital on 3 September last year. He says that she consented to all sexual activity between them.

The woman told the High Court in Edinburgh that she knew McGuire, a chef.

She had been socialising with others in her flat that evening, and she and McGuire were left alone.

“He stood up and moved towards me quite fast. He came straight across to me. He grabbed my hair. He pushed me over a chair and pulled at my top,” the woman said.

She alleged that McGuire “tore down” her leggings and underwear and raped her. She said her face was pushed down into a cushion.

“I tried to push him off me. The cushion was over my mouth, but I was shouting and screaming and saying, ‘No.’ “

The woman recalled being in her bedroom and McGuire trying to tie her hands with a belt.

Her daughter had been sleeping, but came into the bedroom. The girl was “very upset” and punched McGuire in the ribs.

The trial continues.