The continuing career of rapist footballer David Goodwillie disgraces his sport and stains Scotland, his victim says today.
Denise Clair, speaking publicly for the first time since Raith Rovers provoked outrage by signing the unrepentant player, said the outcry last week was justified but came many years too late.
She told the Sunday Post the willingness of football clubs, the sport’s authorities and politicians, with a few honourable exceptions, to turn a blind eye as Goodwillie continued to play senior football after a landmark civil action confirmed he raped her, has been appalling.
“Of course people should be outraged and scandalised that a man like that was about to play for Raith Rovers but he has never stopped playing,” she said. “He was picked for Clyde four days after judges rejected his appeal and confirmed he raped me. That was four years ago and that’s when people should have been outraged and scandalised.
“Or, going even further back, they should have been outraged and scandalised when the prosecution against him was dropped 10 years ago for reasons which have never been properly explained to me.
‘Everyone who helped him carry on his career should feel shame’
“David Goodwillie has already shown he is shameless but everyone who helped him carry on his career without a word of remorse should be feeling ashamed today.”
Ms Clair, 30, said all those who enabled the player to continue to play senior football despite his lack of remorse and all those who turned a blind eye to it should reflect on their silence but, she said, the country is still failing to curb or properly punish male violence against women.
Ms Clair said there was more than enough shame to be shared by the club directors who let Goodwillie wear their jersey after judges ruled him a rapist; the team-mates who played beside him; the supporters who cheered his goals; the fans who sang obscene songs about her or posted on social media threatening to attack her again; the sport’s authorities who did nothing; and the politicians who said nothing as, for four years, his presence stained the so-called beautiful game.
Widespread condemnation only came last week when best-selling novelist Val McDermid made public her disgust and dismay at Raith Rovers, her club, for signing Goodwillie. She withdrew her sponsorship, as her friend, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, added her criticism, calling for the sport’s authorities to step in; the club’s women’s team severed ties; and fans, including former prime minister Gordon Brown, weighed in to criticise the Fife club’s decision.
But, Ms Clair pointed out, the first minister was less vocal when politicians of all parties – including leaders of all three opposition parties – backed a Sunday Post campaign four years ago to force Goodwillie’s club, Clyde, to sack him and for prosecutors to properly explain why the criminal case against him was dropped in 2011.
She was to later launch and win a landmark civil action in 2017 when a judge agreed Goodwillie and his then team-mate David Robertson had raped her. In December 2017, three appeal judges backed the decision but, on the following Saturday, he was playing for Clyde. At the time, asked if Goodwillie should be sacked or suspended, Clyde chairman Norrie Innes asked: “For what?”
‘It’s taken so long for people to stand up and say these things’
Ms Clair, who has in recent years rebuilt her life and had hoped not to speak about Goodwillie again, said: “The first minister was correct to condemn Raith Rovers last week but I don’t remember her saying anything at all four years ago about why he was still playing for Clyde or why the case against him was dropped.
“I certainly do remember and still appreciate the very few politicians who did their best to raise it and being met with indifference. I’m glad Val McDermid spoke out last week but Goodwillie’s continuing career was not some secret that has just been exposed. It should not have needed a celebrity endorsement for people to be revolted by it.
“I have to ask why it has taken so long for people to stand up and say all the things that are now being said? This is about more than him, it is about sexism and misogyny and women being listened to and having their voices heard.
“In my civil action, one of Scotland’s most senior judges, backed by three more on appeal, the same judges who preside over criminal cases of rape, decided I was raped and one of the men responsible continued playing senior football without a word of remorse or a murmur of protest from many of the same people speaking out now.”
Robertson left the sport after the ruling but Goodwillie continued to play at senior level despite the civil action branding him a rapist after hearing how witnesses and CCTV revealed she was so drunk or drugged that Ms Clair could hardly walk never mind consent.
She praised The Post for its campaign, backed by politicians including three party leaders, Richard Leonard, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie, and MSPs including Neil Findlay, Elaine Smith, and Anas Sarwar, Leonard’s successor as Labour leader. They tried but failed to force Clyde to stop playing – and paying – Goodwillie, who has never admitted his actions or apologised for them, and for the Crown Office to properly explain why the men did not face criminal trial.
‘Only football mattered, rape victims didn’t’
“It was not that people did not speak up. They did but nobody wanted to listen. Nobody was interested,” said Ms Clair.
“It was raised at Holyrood. The MSPs met Clyde, and they met North Lanarkshire Council which owns the ground where the club played. And they got nowhere. Only football mattered, rape victims didn’t.
“So yes, I’m content that people are interested now, saying the right things now. But it would have meant a lot more to me if they had done the right thing four years ago, 10 years ago.”
Her then MSP Neil Findlay was among those campaigning on Ms Clair’s behalf. He welcomed McDermid’s decision to speak out but said politicians eager to join her condemnation of Goodwillie had their chance years ago.
He said: “Where were the first minister, her justice secretary and all these other politicians when Denise needed them to speak up? Nowhere. Silent.
“This is a question of morality and the need to try to do the right thing and say the right thing even when there is no bandwagon to jump on.”
“Elaine Smith, Anas Sarwar and myself met Norrie Innes to ask him to remove Goodwillie. That he didn’t says a lot about this so-called beautiful game.
“Goodwillie’s continuing career has been a disgrace but the failure to prosecute these men was even worse and helps explain why Scotland still has one of the worst sex crime conviction rates.”
Facing a wall of criticism, Raith Rovers finally apologised on Thursday saying it should not have signed Goodwillie – who is said to be negotiating a six-figure pay-off – but only after doubling-down on it days earlier when it had insisted the signing was a “football-related decision”. Ms Clair said that statement was both tone-deaf and immoral.
‘These clubs like to call themselves family clubs’
She said: “It simply encourages footballers to think they can behave as they like and there will be no consequences.
“They can rape or beat or abuse women and as long as they can score goals, they are exempt from the same rules everyone else in society lives by. It said to victims, you do not matter. Only football matters. Only goals matter. It is immoral and misogynistic. These clubs like to call themselves family clubs. Families without daughters? Families without shame?”
Shortly before the board U-turned, Kyle Benedictus, the Raith captain, issued a statement saying Goodwillie had the full support of his teammates, adding: “We know how good a player he is and we’re here to back him. He’s a professional and he’ll do his talking on the pitch.”
Ms Clair told the Sunday Post that only underlined how so many men still do not understand, or want to understand, the implications of male violence against women.
She said: “One of the saddest things was the statement from the players saying they supported him. Why is it only the club’s women, led by their captain Tyler Rattray, who said what needed to be said.
“Why were the men apparently happy to be playing beside an unrepentant rapist. Do they even understand what they’re saying? What message does that send? I would hope some of the men in that dressing room would be unhappy at being included in the statement. If they are, they should stand up and say so. If anything is going to change the time for silence is long gone.
‘Silence from the authorities is deafening’
“It is not enough for the footballing authorities, the league, the SFA, to stay silent on this. They talk so much about equality and respect but when faced with actual reality instead of waffle, their silence deafened me.
“There needs to be officials who do nothing but ensure players and clubs are properly made aware of their responsibilities.
“They should be developing educational programmes about sexual violence. Practical measures, not warm words about nothing, could promote real change.
“It’s shameful they have allowed Goodwillie to continue playing all these years without taking any action. They are just as complicit as him and Robertson with their silence and looking the other way,” she added.
Last week, Manchester United immediately suspended Mason Greenwood, 20, after he was accused of rape. His teammates have unfollowed him on social media and he has been dropped by best-selling video game Fifa 22, while his sponsors Nike have frozen their support until the legal process is over.
“Maybe that shows things are changing. In England at least,” said Ms Clair. “I would like to think that things might be different in Scotland but nothing I have seen or heard makes me believe it.”
A call for change
Ms Clair spoke publicly for the first time since Goodwillie signed for Raith Rovers because she wants to see real change in how male violence against women is discussed, prosecuted and punished.
“Goodwillie hasn’t been punished for what he did to me. His career carried on, his life continued,” she said.
“I was punished in so many ways, so much anguish and despair and doubts. They ruined me, those men. They shattered me, for years and years and years.”
She no longer wants to discuss the players’ actions on the night she was raped, their coldness, calculation and squalid brutality.
She no longer expects an acknowledgement of what they did, never mind an apology.
At the time of the rape, Denise had no idea who Goodwillie even was when she bumped into her former school friend David Robertson who had gone out with his Dundee United team-mate for a night out in West Lothian.
The former Scottish Prison Service education adviser worker only remembers having a drink with Robertson and his friend as she caught up with him. She remembers nothing until waking up naked, alone and terrified, locked in a strange house without a clue where she was or how she got there.
The case
Witness statements from door stewards and a taxi driver suggest she was almost unable to stand when she left the club and her eyes were rolling in her head. The players assured one worried steward that they were taking her straight home.
Instead, they took her to an empty house and attacked her. After waking, she immediately called the police but they failed to test her quickly enough to establish if she had been spiked. Tests did, however, suggest she had been close to having potentially fatal levels of alcohol.
The taxi driver who picked them up later spoke of his concern about the players’ actions while medical experts later claimed their victim could have died after being raped in her condition and left alone for hours.
Robertson was never charged after admitting he had sex with Ms Clair despite witness statements showing she was incapable of consent. The prosecution of Goodwillie was dropped six months later despite previous assurances that the evidence against him was strong.
However, refusing to accept the men would escape all censure or exposure, Ms Claire launched the first ever civil action of its kind in the UK with Lord Armstrong ruling four years ago that the players had raped her. At appeal, three more judges upheld his ruling.
‘No remorse’
Ms Clair said: “I had to force myself to sit through the civil court case just to piece together what they had done to me.
“It was horrific listening to their evidence, knowing it was me they were talking about and not recognising or remembering a single moment of what they were describing.
“They were predators, rapists, and have never shown a sliver of remorse only self-pity and self-interest.
“David Goodwillie will be counting his money from Raith Rovers and no doubt thinking he is the victim in all of this. He’s not, he’s a disgrace, an atrocity.
“He should be feeling nothing but shame but he’s not the only one.”
