Child tells of threats by rape accused police officer Martyn Coulter

A child has told a jury that a police officer threatened to kill her mother if she told anyone he had raped her.

The girl had previously told the court that Martyn Coulter sexually assaulted her when she was aged six.

The 36-year-old is accused of raping and sexually assaulting a woman and a child in Edinburgh and East Lothian between 2013 and 2014.

The officer, who has been suspended from the force, denies the charges.

The child's recorded evidence was played to jurors at the High Court in Edinburgh.

She said: "He said it once that I can remember. He said he would kill my mum if I told her."

The girl said she did not tell her mother and when asked why not replied: "Because he said he would kill her."

Ian Duguid KC, counsel for Mr Coulter, asked her if she was saying that was why she never told her mother:

She replied: "I never told anybody.

"I felt like it was just what I had to deal with and I couldn't tell anybody because, obviously I didn't want my mum dead and I didn't want to get into trouble because obviously he was the policeman and he was in the army," said the girl who is now a secondary school pupil.

Martyn Coulter later gave evidence in which he told the court that an allegation that he assaulted and raped a woman in the summer of 2013 in Dunbar was an untrue story.

Mr Duguid asked him: "So far as you are concerned that's just a story?" He replied: "Yes." The senior counsel added: "None of which is true." and he responded: "None of which is true."

The court heard that from 6 to 21 September 2013 Mr Coulter was in Hampshire taking part in military police training.

The woman had accused him of raping her in a second incident at his then home after he wanted to "celebrate" news of his posting to Afghanistan.

Mr Coulter said: "It could not have happened" and that it was only after the period of the alleged attack that he learnt he was to be sent there.

He told the court that he did go to Afghanistan and served a brief period there as a military policeman.

He said he had previously served a tour in Afghanistan in the infantry in combat operations.

Martyn Coulter is on trial facing seven charges which he has denied.

He is accused of raping a woman at a house in Dunbar, East Lothian, in 2013 after pushing her onto a bed, and raping the woman that same year at his former flat in Edinburgh.

He is further alleged to have raped and assaulted a young girl in Dunbar between September 2013 and November 2014 when she was aged five or six, and of physically assaulting another child by striking her on the head.

He was acquitted of an allegation of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner by trial judge Lady Drummond after the Crown withdrew the charge. The trial continues.