Friday, October 28, 2005

Guard Who Raped Lesbian Loses Appeal

(Link) Jury finds his claim that "she really wanted it" and "just needed a good man" too hard to believe. He'll soon find himself meeting plenty of "good men" in prison.
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LNewsEditor said...

JIC Post:

ALAN MCEWEN
Scotsman.com

A security guard who raped a lesbian in his bothy on a building site has lost an appeal against his conviction.

Kenneth Blyth tried to have his conviction overturned by arguing that the jury in the case should have considered the idea that he may have "honestly believed" that his victim had consented to sex.

Blyth was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison after being found guilty of attacking his 34-year-old victim after meeting her in a pub in the Dalry area of the Capital.

During the original trial, Blyth claimed that the victim consented to sex, but the jury rejected this.

Blyth, 30, of Bingham Medway, Edinburgh, launched an appeal at the city's High Court alleging that the trial judge misdirected the jury.

Defending solicitor advocate John Carroll said the jury should have considered the possibility that Blyth believed she had consented, even though she may not have.

But Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice-General, ruled that his appeal was "without foundation" and threw out the case.

He said that Blyth's evidence spoke only of his claims the victim had consented to sex and this other possibility had not been brought up during the defence case.

"A direction about honest belief in rape cases should only be given when an issue about honest belief has been raised in the evidence," concluded Lord Cullen.

During his four-day trial in January 2003, Blyth denied raping the woman and having sex to her severe injury in the early hours of September 30, 2002.

The pair had started chatting over drinks in a pub and the victim told Blyth that she was gay. They left together in the early hours of September 30 and went to the building site in nearby Northcote Street, where Blyth worked as a security guard, to have a cup of coffee.

"I didn't see any reason not to trust him," she told the court. The woman said she asked to go to the toilet and when she returned to the hut Blyth pushed her to the ground and turned the lights off.

She told how she tried to get up and Blyth, who was behind her, pulled down her jeans. She said she asked him to stop but he had sex with her and committed a further sexual assault.

The woman claimed her attacker told her: "The only reason you are a lesbian is because you don't know what a good man is."

Solicitor advocate Richard Goddard, defending, suggested she was "quite keen" to go to the building site with Blyth. "And it was not just for coffee. You thought there might be a chance of something happening between the two of you."

The woman told him: "No sir, I am not interested in men."

She went home, ran a bath and told her partner of four years that she had been raped. The woman's 41-year-old lover told the court: "She was frightened, shaking." A police surgeon also gave evidence that the victim had internal injuries which were consistent with her account of events.

Jailing Blyth after the jury found him guilty by a majority verdict, judge Lord Dawson told him: "I am satisfied from the evidence I heard that you subjected the woman to a very brutal attack." The court also heard how Blyth had been allowed bail but breached the order within 20 minutes, threatening to kill a potential witness.

Lord Dawson imposed a four-year prison term for the rape and another nine months for a breach of the peace after Blyth threatened a woman who may have been called as a witness.

10/28/2005 10:52 AM

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