A mother told a court yesterday of how a man she knew had sex with her 14-year old daughter.
Stevie Cunningham told the mother, known only as Mrs Y, that he was giving the schoolgirl a lift home – but instead he drove her to his house in rural Caithness and slept with her.
The court heard how Mrs Y became concerned after her daughter didn’t appear and her initial search for her took her to 27-year-old Cunningham’s then home.
When the father-of-two answered her knock, a jury at Wick heard, they had just had sex and Cunningham had told the girl to hide in a cupboard.
Mrs Y told the court that when he opened the door, Cunningham said that he had driven the girl, termed Miss X for legal reasons, to Wick to visit a friend.
Cunningham denies on indictment having sex with a girl under the age of 16, on February 19, 2015, claiming he didn’t know she was underage.
Mrs Y told the court yesterday that she rebuked the accused for dropping a 14-year-old in her track suit and slippers in Wick and became worried because “things didn’t add up” and feared her daughter might have been in a car accident.
Mrs Y was “worried sick” as she drove to Wick to search for her daughter and on the way Cunningham’s car ‘flashed’ past at high speed heading in the same direction, Miss X having been told by him to slide down in the passenger’s seat to avoid being spotted.
Mrs Y subsequently located her daughter and took her home. Initially, the girl didn’t tell her parents what had happened but then burst into tears and told them everything.
Mrs Y said she had trusted Cunningham, now of Murray Avenue, Wick, with her daughter, particularly when he had first cleared it with her on the phone.
Later, Cunningham insisted that Miss X had told him she was “16 turning 17” and added: “That is God’s honest truth.”
Cunningham said that he was going to get a condom but the girl told him it wasn’t necessary as she had a contraception implant and showed it to him.
Mr Matheson maintained that the absence of shock when told by Mrs Y that her daughter was 14 was because he already knew she was that age and was being “petrified” about being caught.
The jury is expected to retire today to consider their verdict.
