Police officer abused his position, rape trial told

A police officer accused of raping a woman and a girl allegedly told the woman that she would not be believed.

Prosecutor Kath Harper told a jury at the trial of Martyn Coulter that he "abused his position" as a police officer.

But defence counsel Ian Duguid KC said Coulter should be acquitted on the evidence at the trial.

The officer, who has been suspended from the force, denies the charges he faces at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Advocate depute Ms Harper said: "He told her she would not be believed.

"He was a police officer, she was frightened she would not be believed."

The accused was "frequently angry" and often aggressive and violent, the court heard.

The prosecutor said that they had heard evidence that he would shake, stare and go bright red in anger.

She said that Mr Coulter had "laughed over and over again" when serious allegations were put to him during a police interview.

Ms Harper asked jurors to consider whether they thought he was laughing because he was shocked or if he was perhaps contemptuous of the allegations.

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

But Mr Duguid urged the jury to acquit him, adding: "You are not judging him because he is a police officer."

He said that a Metropolitan police officer's court case had been the subject of "great coverage" in the media.

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

Coulter 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.

The jury has now retired to consider its verdict and the trial before Lady Drummond continues.