Woman: `I drank and drove to flee rapist'
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Your support makes all the difference.A WOMAN has been cleared of drink-driving after claiming that she drove to escape a man who had raped her.
Ms X was found not guilty after telling Glasgow Sheriff Court that she had been raped by a stranger as she walked home from a graduation ceremony in the city's West End. Shortly after the attack, she thought she saw the man again, and drove off to escape him.
Minutes later she was stopped by police and found to be over the drink- drive limit. She did not tell the police officers of the rape because, she said, she had been raped in Birmingham when she was 17 and did not want to relive her experience at the hands of the police and the judicial system.
The woman, who is aged in her thirties, lives in Glasgow. She told her lawyer about the rape nine days after the attack. The next day her GP found she had injuries consistent with having been raped.
Details of the trial, which was conducted last week, came to light yesterday. Sheriff Craig McSherry had excluded the public to protect the identity of Ms X. The sheriff accepted the woman's "defence of necessity" after hearing of legal precedents. In one previous case a man said he had to drive to escape a beating from a car mechanic.
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