A Moray pensioner has been acquitted of raping a woman he took home from a night out.
Alexander Beaton appeared at the High Court in Aberdeen this week during a three-day trial, which concluded with jurors unanimously returning a not proven verdict.
The 69-year-old had been accused of raping the 57-year-old woman in Forres in April 2019.
The divorced grandfather denied rape and told police during an interview that she was “absolutely minced” and that any sexual contact was consensual.
During Mr Beaton’s interview with police officers in the wake of the incident – which was played to the jury – he told detectives that the “foreplay” he performed on the woman was “consensual”.
In that same interview, he said the woman had been unresponsive on the floor at his Councillors Walk home moments earlier.
Accused told police that woman was ‘minced’
He said the woman was “out cold, unconscious and not responding” on his hallway floor so he woke her up and told her she needed to “either go home or get to bed where you can be comfy”, before lifting her onto his own bed.
“As I lay her down she grabbed me, snogged me and pulled me over,” he said. “She was enjoying it just as I was”.
He told officers how the pair had some sexual contact, to her enjoyment, before she said “stop, stop, stop”.
Mr Beaton, who worked offshore in the oil industry at the time, said: “I said ‘what’s going on? You want this as much as I do’. I told her to get her clothes on and get out of my house. I was angry.”
He added: “She said I had raped her and I told her not to be absurd. It was consensual.”
Mr Beaton told detectives how he assumed he was “on a promise” and that whether or not they would have sexual intercourse was “never talked about”.
He also said he had drunk around 10 pints of Guinness that night, an amount he consumed daily when onshore, and had taken liquid Viagra when the pair got home.
Woman told jury her memory of events
She said she met Mr Beaton in Legends Bar that evening and the pair, along with others, moved on to The Eagle pub before going home together to drink more.
She said fell asleep on the floor at Mr Beaton’s home and woke up “in bed with my skirt by my waist and my tights and underwear pulled down past my knees”. She didn’t know how long she had been asleep.
She claimed Mr Beaton was on top of her and penetrating her, pinning her down by her wrists as she began to fight him off.
Photo evidence from police showed Mr Beaton’s face sporting a black eye and more than a dozen scratches.
Mr Beaton’s defence counsel Edith Forrest said he had suffered these injuries when he was pulled over by the woman as they walked back home from the pub.
Earlier in the trial, Dr Gordon Guthrie, a forensic physician, said the woman had sustained an injury to her genitals which was “three to four times more likely” to be in keeping with non-consensual penetration than consensual sex.
After hearing the verdict, Mr Beaton thanked the judge, Lord Richardson, and the seven men and eight women making up the jury.
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