A young woman told a court yesterday that a 22-year-old man slept with her when she was a “vulnerable” 14-year-old.
Angus Francis, 27, of Ross Place, Fort William, is on trial before a sheriff and jury at Oban Sheriff Court.
He denies sleeping with two underage girls. One girl, who is now 19, said they had sex at various locations in Oban between April 2012 and June 2013 when she was 14 and 15.
He is charged with sleeping with the other girl when she was 14 in 2006 in a car near Oban High School when he was 17.
Giving evidence, the 19-year-old woman said that she met Francis in a pub in Oban when she was 14.
She said: “When I was 14 I was going through a really hard time. I was being bullied in school. I didn’t have many friends my own age. I had two older friends.”
The girl had been drinking with her older friends, aged 20 and 21, when she decided to sneak into the Lorne Bar, where she met Francis.
But she was quickly spotted and asked to leave for being underage, she said.
She went to a house with Francis and her friends where they drank and smoked cannabis.
They kept in touch by text message and she sneaked out of her house to meet him a few weeks later and they had sex.
She said: “This was May 2012. We have the same birthday, I would have been 14, he would have been 22.
“He told me I couldn’t tell anybody because it was our secret. He could get into trouble.
“I knew it was wrong, I felt really dirty, but he made me feel like I was wanted, that somebody on this planet wanted me.”
Fiscal Eoin McGinty asked her: “It may be suggested you told him you were 16?”
She replied: “No I didn’t. He knew I was 14 years old. He knew fine well how young I was. He knew what year I was in at school. He knew I hadn’t sat any exams. I was in third year. When I first met him I told him I was 14.”
She added: “Last year I came to the realisation that it was not right. I was a very vulnerable person and he saw that and took advantage of that.”
