EDINBURGH — A man has come forward claiming that a former policeman from Edinburgh abused him severely around a decade ago.
The victim, now a grown man, said 55-year-old Phillip McCarthy punched him on a regular basis also hit him using a belt on several occasions.
He adds that his aggressor even tied him to a pool outside a house using police issued handcuffs.
According to him, his ordeal lasted three years and he was apprehensive to report the cruelty because he believed nothing would come out of it since McCarthy was a police officer.
This is not the only charge against him. He is also accused of abusing a seven-year-old girl and displaying sexually inappropriate behavior towards an underage teenage girl.
In another charge, his partner Jane Kitt is also indicted – it is alleged that the two often abandoned a young girl in their care.
McCarty has pleaded not guilty on all four charges.
His ill-treatment of the seven-year-old went on for nine years. He is accused of grabbing her by the head, punching her on the body, knocking her to the ground, using a belt to strike her naked body that lead to physical injury.
In the two-year period from 1993 to 1995 he allegedly displayed vulgar and sexually inappropriate behavior towards a teenage girl. This included making lewd remarks and handling her breasts.
Kitt who is now 61 is accused along with him for deliberately leaving a child in daycare unattended for extended periods of time. This involved leaving the minor alone in the house during the five year period between 1990 and 1995.
McCarty’s defence agent Jim Stephenson and Kitt’s defence agent Mark Harrower have categorically accused the first victim lying and fabricating his allegations.
The former said it was quite peculiar that no one had noticed any bruises on the alleged victim’s body in the three year period that he claims he was abused.
Harrower on the other hand said while the first piece of information that the man had offered during the trial was being handcuffed outside the house, it was odd that he did not mention it to the police when first revealed the details of his abuse.
The trial is continuing before Sheriff Jamie Gilmore as the public awaits a decision with bated breath.