Former footballer jailed for six years for raping former partners
A FORMER footballer has been sentenced to six years in prison for raping three former partners.
James Coulter was found guilty of nine charges, including rape, committed over a six-year period. The offences took place up until 2014.
The High Court in Glasgow heard how the former Albion Rovers player, 33, assaulted one woman with a Player of the Year trophy hours after winning it and threatened to publish explicit images of her and send them to her family.
The victim was a barmaid at a club in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire when she met Coulter.
Coulter’s second victim was a civil servant whom he assaulted regularly before going on to rape her.
He had filmed her performing a sex act without her knowledge, the court was told.
The woman amassed debts of around £30,000 after giving money to gambling addict Coulter.
The third woman, a nurse, was assaulted by Coulter after meeting him at a local nightclub. She was raped at a home in Blantyre in 2014.
Coulter denied the allegations and claimed his encounters with the women were consensual.
Judge John Morris QC told Coulter that he had committed a “catalogue of abuse” against the women.
Coulter, who it emerged had also assaulted another women regularly between 2001 and 2002, was snared by a Domestic Abuse Taskforce probe after the second women went to the police.
Sentence was passed at the High Court in Paisley.
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