East Calder rapist will be sentenced next month

Feb 25 2010 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A RAPIST who carried out a sex attack on a young woman after offering to show her how he planned to tie up a friend who was celebrating his birthday will be sentenced next month.

East Calder man Craig Cormack bound his victim’s hands with curtain ties before subjecting the crying teenager to a rape ordeal on the day of his 21st birthday.

Cormack, now 23, told her that he was due to go to an 18th birthday party where it was planned that a friend would be tied up to a lamppost.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that he asked her if he could show her how he intended to tie up his friend and she agreed. Advocate depute Graeme Jessop said she “did not think anything of this request at the time” and Cormack got a set of tie-backs and used them on her hands.

The prosecutor added: “The victim thought nothing of this until the accused started to undo his trousers.

“At this she tried to pull her hands away, but as she pulled the tighter the knot became on her wrists.”

Cormack then approached his 18-year-old victim, who began screaming as he took off her trousers and then raped her, with the young woman crying throughout, the court heard.

He later admitted to police that he had suggested tying up the young woman to show her what he intended to do to his friend, but he then raped her on a bed at a flat in Livingston.

Mr Jessop said: “He described to the police how he changed when he saw her tied up. He could not further describe this change, but described having no control over it.”

Cormack told officers it was like showing “a red rag to a bull” and added: “I had no control over what I did.”

He also said: “There’s not a day goes past that I don’t wish that I can turn back the clock and take back what I have done.”

Cormack, of Calderhall Avenue, East Calder, pleaded guilty to assaulting the woman on June 25, 2007, by tying her hands, forcibly removing her trousers and raping her.

He also admitted a further charge of raping the same victim two years earlier at a house in West Lothian after holding her down on a bed.

Mr Jessop said that the victim maintained she was in shock after the first sex attack and “did not really know what to do”.

Cormack later wrote her a letter in which he said: “This is the worst thing I have ever done. I don’t know why I did it.”

The second assault occurred after he went to speak to the young woman and brought up in conversation that he was due to attend a friend’s 18th birthday party.

After the rape the woman phoned a friend and told him what Cormack had done, but she did not report the offences to police until July 2008.

When interviewed by police he admitted the second rape, but when questioned over the previous incident said: “I think she’s talking a lot of crap.”

He was also quizzed over letters he had sent to the victim, one of which stated: “I felt like the monster was back.”

Mr Jessop said the victim was prescribed anti-depressants and carries a rape alarm and had indicated she was now scared of the dark and of being alone.

Defence solicitor advocate John Keenan asked for first offender Cormack’s bail to be continued ahead of sentencing next month.

But Lord Kinclaven ordered that Cormack be held in prison while a background report is prepared on him.

The judge also ordered that he be placed on the sex offenders’ register.