An 18-year-old youth who spent his teenage years in foster care was on Friday cleared of raping two teenage girls after a jury found the charges ‘not proven’.
Both 16-year-old female friends claimed Devin Andrews raped them in three separate incidents at an address in Fife between July and September 2018.
One of them, now an 18-year-old college student living in Glenrothes, said he forced her to give him oral sex and, on another occasion, brutally raped her on the floor of her friend’s home in Lochgelly.
The second young woman, also now aged 18, alleged that he raped her in her bedroom while her parents and siblings slept upstairs unaware.
Andrews lodged special defences to all three charges claiming that the girls had consented to sexual activity with him.
He gave evidence that the girls had made up the allegations and said he genuinely believed both teenagers had been willing partners.
Andrews, told the High Court in Livingston that an oral sex session with one them had just happened “out of the blue” without anything being said.
He said that girl had willingly taken part in another sex session under a duvet on the floor while their friend – the other alleged victim – lay awake on a bed less than two metres away.
He said that although sex with the other girl had been consensual it had been “a mistake” because she had been “like a sister” to him and they were both drunk at the time.
The jury at the High Court in Livingston took five hours to return majority verdicts finding all three charges not proven.
Judge Lord Uist told Andrews: “In the light of the verdicts of the jury you are discharged from the dock. You are free to go.”
Andrews, who showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out, made no comment as he left court.
