Court considers private prosecution bid against David Goodwillie

Scottish appeal judges are considering whether to permit a private criminal prosecution of former Scotland footballer David Goodwillie after hearing arguments from Denise Clair’s legal team. According to BBC News, Clair’s lawyer challenged the decision not to prosecute him, while lawyers for the Crown and Goodwillie opposed the application. No decision on permission was announced in the report.

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Clair previously brought a civil action concerning an incident at a flat in Armadale, West Lothian, in January 2011. In 2017, Court of Session judge Lord Armstrong found that Goodwillie and his then-Dundee United teammate David Robertson had raped her and ordered them to pay £100,000 in damages. Both men had denied the allegations. That civil finding is separate from the criminal prosecution Clair now seeks.

Thomas Ross KC, representing Clair at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, argued that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to bring a case and a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. He maintained that the Crown’s decision to drop the rape charges because of insufficient evidence was mistaken and irrational. Those assertions were submissions by Clair’s lawyer, rather than findings announced by the appeal judges.

Alan Cameron KC, appearing for the Crown, defended the original decision. He argued that prosecutors were entitled to decline to proceed after considering all the available evidence. He also told the court that the exceptional circumstances necessary to allow criminal letters to be issued were absent, opposing the route Clair is asking the judges to authorise.

The BBC reported that Clair’s lawyers face a demanding legal threshold: they must establish that the prosecution decision was one no reasonable prosecutor could have made. Goodwillie’s lawyer, Lord Stewart of Dirleton KC, argued that the requirements for a private prosecution had not been met. He also challenged the fairness of using Goodwillie’s evidence from the civil proceedings, saying it had been given after the Lord Advocate renounced the right to prosecute.

Goodwillie won three Scotland caps and played for clubs including Dundee United, Blackburn Rovers and Clyde. His 2022 move to Raith Rovers prompted resignations and the withdrawal of shirt sponsorship by author Val McDermid. The current application remains unresolved: Lord Pentland said the judges would consider the submissions before issuing their judgment.