A rapist caught after his teenage victim secretly recorded him has been jailed for four and a half years.
Craig McWhirter, 30, forced himself on the 19 year-old at the Dakota Hotel in Glasgow city centre on July 22 2019. The brave young woman had managed to capture a harrowing audio recording on her phone which was played to jurors.
The distressed victim could be heard repeatedly begging: "Please, please stop..." She also pleaded to go to sleep, but burly McWhirter insisted she was "in his bed".
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First-offender McWhirter was today sentenced by judge Lord Scott at the High Court in Glasgow having earlier been convicted of rape. Jurors were told how the victim had been working as an escort at the time and had agreed to meet McWhirter at the hotel for money.
The pair initially had consensual sex and were later seen together standing outside. It was after returning to the room that McWhirter then raped the young woman.
In the recording, she was also heard complaining of being in pain. The tearful victim was eventually able to alert hotel staff to what had happened.
She was described as "pale and shaken" while stating she had been raped. She had to call her father to come and collect her.
After McWhirter was held by police, he was played the recording the woman captured. When it was put to him she was crying "no" and "stop", McWhirter stated: "It sounds like that, aye."
But, he went on to claim: "I do not rape folk."
In her speech to jurors, prosecutor Tracey Brown said "No means no whatever you do for a living."
McWhirter had earlier tried to dodge justice by failing to appear for an earlier scheduled trial in Edinburgh last September. He went AWOL before being arrested on a warrant later that month.
Alan Gravelle, defending, today said McWhirter had paid to meet the young woman at a time his life had "spiralled out of control".
Lord Scott told the rapist because the woman had sex with him earlier did not mean she would automatically consent later.
The judge added: "It must be free agreement to sexual activity on each specific occasion."
McWhirter was also put on the sex offenders list.
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