Scottish police officer who allegedly raped woman and girl 'went bright red in anger'

A police officer accused of raping a woman and a girl was “frequently angry” and often aggressive and violent, a court heard.

Prosecutor Kath Harper told a jury at the trial of Martyn Coulter that they had heard evidence that he would shake, stare and go bright red in anger.

The advocate depute said Coulter, on the evidence of the adult woman he is alleged to have attacked and raped, told her that she would not be believed.

She said: “He told her she would not be believed. He was a police officer, She was frightened she would not be believed.”

“In other words he abused his position as a police officer to stop her saying anything,” she said.

The prosecutor said that during a police interview when serious allegations were put to him Coulter had “laughed over and over again”.

She asked jurors to consider whether they thought he was laughing because he was shocked or did they form the view that he was perhaps contemptuous of the allegations.

The advocate depute asked the jury to find the alleged victims credible and reliable and to convict Coulter of the charges he faces.

But defence counsel Ian Duguid KC said Coulter was entitled to be acquitted on the evidence led at the trial.

He said it was probably not a great time for a police officer to be standing trial on such charges and added that a Metropolitan police officer’s court case had been the subject of “great coverage”.

Mr Duguid said that had nothing to do with Coulter’s case and added: “You are not judging him because he is a police officer.”

“It is the evidence in this case that matters, not anything else, not any other cases,” he said.

Coulter, 36, has denied the seven charges that he faces in the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

He is accused of assaulting and raping a woman, now aged 36, on an occasion between June 1 and July 31 in 2013 at an address in Dunbar, East Lothian, after repeatedly pushing her onto a bed.

He is also alleged to have assaulted and raped the woman at his former flat in Ashwood Gait, in Edinburgh, between September 1 and October 24 in 2013.

Coulter is further alleged to have assaulted the woman on various occasions between June 2013 and November 2014 at a house in Dunbar by striking and kicking her.

He is also accused of assaulting a girl between September 2013 and November 2014 in Dunbar when she was aged five and six by striking and punching her and throwing her against a radiator.

He is also alleged to have sexually assaulted the child during the same period in Dunbar and to have raped her on a single occasion.

Coulter is accused of assaulting a second girl, then aged between three and five, at an address in the East Lothian town between September 2013 and November 2014 by repeatedly striking her on the head.

Jurors began considering their verdicts in the Coulter case on Monday afternoon, but will return to court to resume their deliberations on Tuesday.