Scotland - Edinburgh
Evening News
Tue 3 Feb 2004
Gang rape appeal bid set for ruling
MICHAEL HOWIE
Woman's friends claim 'she lied'

Men insist sex was consensual

Trio say police statement altered

THREE Edinburgh men fighting to have their rape convictions overturned
are set to learn this month whether High Court judges will reopen the
case.
Brian Meighan, Kevin Kane and David Pugh were found guilty in November
2000 of subjecting a young mother to a horrific gang rape in a city
high-rise.
The three men insist the woman invented the rape allegation and had
consented to group sex.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission is investigating their
claims and is expected to decide later this month whether to refer the
case to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Meighan, 27, of Firrhill Drive; Kane, 22, of Fernieside Crescent; and
Pugh, 26, of Fernieside Gardens, are each serving six-year jail
sentences in Peterhead Prison, which houses paedophiles and other
convicted sex offenders.
Their bid to have the convictions quashed, revealed by the Evening
News last October, has been given a major boost with the emergence of
a key witness who claims the woman wrote lurid sexual letters to him
only a few weeks after she was supposed to have been raped.
The man, who was due to be a witness at the trial but failed to
appear, has told lawyers how the letters contained "sexually explicit
material". "She wrote about what she wanted to do with me sexually and
her writing was graphic and extremely explicit," he said.
He added the letters were later discovered by his girlfriend and
destroyed.
Two friends of the woman have also come forward, claiming she told
them she lied about being raped.
One said she had told her she would "get a lot of money from the
criminal injuries compensation scheme".
Another claimed the woman told her after the incident that she had
"done something wrong" - that she had said she was raped "by three
laddies" and wanted to withdraw her police statement.
The friend said: "I asked her why she had done it and she said 'for a
laugh'."
The prisoners say the complainer was allowed to change a 14-page
statement she gave to police, altering the place where the rape was
said to have happened, from the stairwell to a flat.
It is understood the woman initially told police she was walking up
the common stairs when the men attacked her, dragging her to the
ground and raping her. However, CCTV checks later showed she had taken
the lift up to the flat. The court heard the woman had been lured into
the Moredun flat, where the three men were, after drinking with
friends.
She told the court they had got into a conversation about sex and the
men asked if she had ever had three men in the same bed.
She claimed she "got up to leave" but was grabbed and taken into a
bedroom, where the attack took place.
But Pugh insists that he and the two others are victims of a
"glaringly obvious" injustice.
And he has written to local MSPs and campaign groups to press their
case. "We've fought for nearly three years and we will fight until
we're cleared," he said.
Last June, the trio failed in a bid to overturn their convictions.
They appealed on the grounds that judge Lady Paton had misdirected the
jury, but the appeal judge threw out the challenge.
Their case is being supported by Miscarriages of Justice Scotland, a
charity set up last year by Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six.
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=134612004