Disgraced ex-Dundee United stars David Goodwillie and David Robertson offered the woman suing them for rape £115,000 to drop her case .
The footballers made an initial offer of £40,000 to try to buy Denise Clair’s silence, but nearly trebled their offer as their court date approached.
Ms Clair won a landmark civil case against the two men this week when Lord Armstrong ruled they had raped her after a night out in Bathgate.
She was forced to pursue her case in the civil courts after the Crown decided not to bring charges against her attackers.
Ms Clair also said when she refused the offer of a pay-off, Goodwillie’s lawyers tried to get her legal aid cut in a bid to get her to abandon her case.
The 30-year-old mother-of-one, who has waived her right to anonymity, told the Sunday Post: “They tried to buy me off — not the action of men who still claim they did nothing wrong.
“And then, when they couldn’t, their lawyers tried to stop my legal aid to stop the case going ahead.
“Mercifully, they failed. The three offers made to settle would all have involved me keeping quiet — it was their way of trying to gag me.”
Denise sued Goodwillie and Robertson in the Court of Session, claiming that, on January 2, 2011, they took her to an empty house in West Lothian and raped her.
The civil action heard that the men took advantage of vulnerable Denise after they told a pub bouncer they were taking her home to her mother, resulting in Lord Armstrong’s damning verdict on Tuesday.
Goodwillie, 27, and Robertson, 30, maintain their innocence and claim Ms Clair, a former Scottish Prison Service careers adviser, had consented to sex.
But in an unprecedented judgement, Lord Armstrong condemned the footballers as liars and rapists and awarded Ms Clair £100,000 in damages.
She said: “It was never about money. Truth doesn’t have a price. It was about exposing them for who they are.”
The three offers to settle the case were kept secret for legal reasons — as was the attempt to remove Ms Clair’s legal aid.
She said: “Now it’s over,
people should know the full truth about what was going on behind the scenes — and people can make up their own minds.
“Do innocent men who say they’ve done nothing wrong offer £115,000 to settle a case in private? I don’t think so.”
Denise, from West Lothian, got the first offer of settlement in June 2015.
She was initially offered £40,000 plus expenses, then £50,000 plus expenses.
Then, a month before the civil case began she received a final offer of £115,000 plus expenses.
Ms Clair said: “Lord Armstrong awarded me £100,000 — less than the players wanted to buy me off with — and most of it will be swallowed up by legal costs. I don’t mind though. All that matters is that I am vindicated.
“I wanted the truth to emerge and no amount of money would have bought my silence or made up for the suffering I, and my family, endured.”
Ms Clair said: “I have been let down by the justice system. They should be behind bars. The police pursued the case but the Crown Office decided not to proceed.”
Goodwillie — who is said to be considering an appeal — and Robertson both deny raping Denise.
