CAILAN DUCHAIN

MAN CLEARED OF RAPE IN FIFE DUE TO CORROBORATION BUT GUILTY FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT TOWARDS A 17 YEAR OLD!

A man who allegedly raped a teenage girl in woodland in Fife has been cleared because of legal rules about corroboration.A jury returned a guilty verdict on a charge against Cailan Duchain of sexually assaulting the 17-year-old near Burntisland in 2019.However, a jury at the High Court in Livingston returned not proven verdicts on another charge involving the same girl and two others involving a 15-year-old.Judge Thomas Hughes freed the 24-year-old under the Moorov doctrine – a legal mechanism which allows for acquittal if corroboration cannot be proven.It meant Mr Duchain, of Alcester, Warwickshire, was acquitted on all four counts.He had denied eight sexual offences against the two girls, including the four allegations of rape.The Crown later withdrew four of the charges.Mr Duchain had lodged special defences to the rape charges at the High Court in Livingston, claiming that both girls had consented to having sex with him.He had also been accused of attacking the 17-year-old at her home shortly after the claimed initial assault.He was also alleged to have raped the 15-year-old in woodland and at a hotel in Dumfries in 2020.The jury found all three of those allegations to be not proven.