Police officer denies having sex with underage girl and raping teen and woman in Shetland

A police officer accused of committing sex crimes in Shetland has denied having sex with an underage girl and raping her and an adult woman.

Carmichael John Williamson, known as John, said it was not true that he took part in sexual activity with the adult woman outside a community hall during a wedding celebration in April 2022.

Defence counsel David Nicolson KC asked Williamson at the High Court in Edinburgh if there was any sexual contact between him and the female at the venue, and he replied: “None at all.”

He said: “We were outside. At the time, I was still vaping, and she was still smoking.”

He also denied that there was any further sexual contact with the woman later on at a house, or that he slapped her on the face.

Williamson, 32, of Burra, in Shetland, also said it was untrue that he had penetrative sex with a girl when she was aged 15 in 2014.

He made contact with the girl through Snapchat when he was a teenage student, and they had sex after she became 16, he said.

He was asked if he had recorded the teenager while she was performing a sex act on him, and he responded: “I have no recollection of ever recording any of our sexual encounters.”

Williamson was alleged to have made the recording on an occasion between April 2014 and October 2015 using a tablet computer, but told the court he did not have such a device at the time.

He told the court he has been a police constable for more than ten years and was previously a special constable, but was currently suspended.

Williamson, a married man with an infant daughter, has denied a series of charges alleged to have been committed at locations in Shetland between 2014 and 2022.

A woman earlier told the court that she met him when she was 15 and he was 19, and they started having sex when she was 15.

She told the court that on one occasion, he carried out a penetrative sex act on her without consent. She said: “It was extremely painful. I was crying and in a lot of pain.”

The woman, now aged 28, said Williamson had a tablet and used it to record her carrying out a sex act on him.  

The trial before judge John Morris KC continues.