Man denies attempted rapes as Dingwall jury trial gets underway
A DINGWALL jury has heard from a woman how she was pinned to her bed and was choked and had a pillow placed over her head as a man tried to force her to have sex.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told Dingwall Sheriff Court that Carl Wheatley, who faces two allegations of attempted rape on two different women, had been drinking and came into her bedroom at an address near Beauly and lay on top of her and pulled her pyjama bottoms off.
“He came through and he wanted to have sex. He didn’t ask me. I remember him being on top of me trying to take my trousers (pyjamas) down.”
The woman said Wheatley had taken his own trousers off.
She told him to get off but he was persistent she told the jury.
“He pinned me down and he was trying to spread my legs.”
She said at one stage Wheatley had his hands around her neck. He was applying pressure and she became light headed. Then he placed a pillow over her head.
Depute fiscal Sharon Ralph told the witness it might be suggested that they were experimenting with ‘sexual asphyxiation’.
“Is that what happened?”
“No,” she replied.
The trial heard that the allegation of attempted rape was made to police weeks after the alleged incident following a second incident on September 28 when the woman alleged she was pushed to the floor and punched repeatedly by Wheatley.
In cross examination by defence solicitor Simon Whyte, she denied a suggestion that they were experimenting with sexual asphyxiation having seen something about it on television. She also refuted that in the injuries she sustained on September 28 were the result of her slipping on beer which she had poured over Wheatley.
Wheatley denies sexually assaulting the woman, who was in her twenties at the time of the alleged offence, with intent to rape at an address in Beauly between August 1, 2012 and September 27, 2012 by seizing her by the neck, compressing her neck and placing a pillow over her face all to her injury.
He is charged with assaulting the same woman on September 28 at the same address by pushing her to the ground and repeatedly punching her to her injury.
Wheatley (39), Lochlann Crescent, Culloden further denies on May 27 at a Dingwall address sexually assaulting another woman with intent to rape by struggling with her pushing her to the floor repeatedly and kicking her on the body to her injury pulling down her jeans and underpants with intent to rape and behaving in a threatening manner and the following day refusing to leave the property when requested to do so.
The trial continues.
