A prisoner on remand used a burner phone to threaten to shoot a mother and two young children after she accused him of rape.
John Scott was arrested after the woman went to police, alleging he had raped her at her home in Dundee.
Scott, 24, who has been acquitted of the rape allegation, was held in Perth Prison but phoned the woman from behind bars using a mobile phone he claimed was “untraceable”.
He threatened that she and the two children would get bullets through their heads if he was convicted.
He said: “I won’t be getting done with rape.
“You’ll be murdered before I get done with that.”
Threat victim’s evidence
Weeping, the 23-year-old woman told a trial Scott said he “dreamed every night of murdering her”.
She said: “He told me there’s two people watching the house and a bullet will go through (one child’s head, then another child’s head) and then let me suffer for a week before putting a bullet through my head.
“He said he was using a burner phone so it couldn’t be traced.”
She said he had earlier messaged her saying she had better get the rape charge dropped, “or I’ll get you dropped”.
She told prosecutor Paul Harvey she was left “shaken and scared” by what Scott had said.
Van driver Scott, from Dundee, pled guilty to being in possession of a banned personal communication device in jail and attempting to pervert the course of justice by making threats to the victim while on remand.
Rape charge not proven
At the High Court in Stirling, after a three day trial, a jury found the charge of rape not proven.
The incident had allegedly occurred on October 8, 2020 at the woman’s home in Fintry.
Advocate Charles Ferguson, defending, said: “He says he did that (threatened the witness) because he was angry because he hadn’t done it (committed rape).”
Judge Lord Weir deferred sentence until February 23 at the High Court in Livingston and continued Scott’s remand in custody.
He said a background report would “clearly be needed, given the evidence which has been led”.
