A man accused of a sex attack on a 10-year-old girl in Montrose almost 17 years ago is standing trial in Dundee.
Adam Gallagher denies indecently assaulting a girl on a date in March or April 2005.
Gallagher, now 34, was 17 at the time of the alleged incident.
He is accused of entering the girl’s bedroom in a flat in the Angus town, while she was asleep, pinning her down and subjecting her to a sex attack.
It is alleged the assault left the girl hurt and Gallagher threatened her family afterwards.
Gallagher was residing in homeless accommodation in Arbroath at the time of the alleged incident.
He only began to face legal proceedings in 2020.
Evidence denied by Gallagher
At a trial in the High Court before Lady Haldane, evidence was led that the following morning, the girl’s mother woke up to cleaning having been done and the girl’s bed sheets and nightie being washed.
The girl had been in the bath that morning, having had blood on her thighs.
Evidence was heard that the girl was left doubled over in pain.
However, former Brechin High School pupil Gallagher claims on the night in question, the girl was not in the house.
He gave evidence that he and another friend from the homeless accommodation took the bus to Montrose on a Friday morning.
Gallagher said they had gone to visit his friend’s relative but the friend had eventually left and gone back to Arbroath alone.
This conflicted with that friend’s account of staying over and bumping into Gallagher leaving the girl’s bedroom at night and the accused angrily telling him not to go inside.
Gallagher claimed the only encounter he had with the girl was her saying “hi, bye” and leaving with a bag over her right shoulder as he entered the flat for the first time.
“That was the first and last time I ever saw that girl,” he said from the witness box.
Acquitted on two charges
He claimed the girl and her mother mistook the number of bedrooms in their home.
He said a police statement which alleges he was arrested for making a threatening call to the family the following Monday was false, stating he did not own a mobile phone at the time.
“It could be said that I have what doctors call hyperthymesia,” Gallagher added.
“My version is totally different.”
On Thursday, he was acquitted of two other charges he had faced.
The trial continues.
