Caroline

A DEAF woman in a hysterical state was handcuffed by police and locked in a cell as she tried to report that she had been raped, a jury heard yesterday.

The woman, 44, told a court that it was several hours before a sign-language interpreter arrived at the police station and explained that the woman had been wanting to make a complaint about being attacked in her home. By then, officers had been on the point of charging her with being drunk in charge of her daughter, she said at the High Court in Edinburgh.

James Clark, 17, of Lanarkshire, is accused of assaulting and raping the woman on 13 April last year. He maintains she consented to sex.

The woman, a mother of three, gave evidence through an interpreter and said she was profoundly deaf and could not speak.

She said Clark came to her house, asking for a relative’s phone number. She indicated to him to wait at the door, but he followed her into the house. "I said, ‘What are you doing? Wait outside’. He walked through to my living room and sat down. I was a bit confused with him coming in. I was frightened," she said.

"He was laughing and saying, ‘Come on’. I pointed to him and indicated with my thumb, ‘Out’. I was shaking. He went to kiss me and I pushed him away. Then he pushed me and I fell on to the chair."

She alleged that Clark raped her and, before leaving, said he loved her and added: "See you tomorrow."

She said she was crying and her daughter, nine, awoke. She "signed" to the girl that she had been raped, and her daughter dialled 999. She did not know what the girl had said in the call.

The woman told the court she had to "wait and wait and wait" for the police to arrive. They eventually came in the early hours of the morning.

"I was quite hysterical. I was going crazy. The woman [officer] handcuffed me because I was so upset and crying. I was taken out to the police car in handcuffs. They did not try to talk to me. They just threw me into a cell and locked me up. All night, I had to sit there."

The woman claimed she had been banging on the door constantly, trying to get the police to understand that she needed an interpreter.

"They just shut the hatch on the door and ignored me," she said.

At 9:30am, an interpreter arrived at the police station. She was about to be charged with being drunk in charge of a child. "I said to Wilma [the interpreter], ‘But he raped me’. The police were shocked. Wilma went mad and said, ‘You should have given her writing paper’.

"The head of the police was absolutely mad with them [the other officers]. He said to forget any charge and I told them about the rape."

Referring to the officers who had handcuffed and put her in the cell, the woman added: "They never said sorry to me or anything."

Asked if she had tried to tell the police about the alleged rape at an earlier stage, she replied: "They just threw me into a cell and locked me up. I was banging the door and crying."

The woman said that all she had taken to drink was two glasses of cider, earlier in the evening, before Clark came to the house.

The woman denied inviting Clark into the house and initiating sex, and lying to the court.

Also, she rejected suggestions that she had been drunk, and had assaulted a police officer at her home.

The trial continues