The former River City star is alleged to have behaved in a \u201cthreatening or abusive manner\u201d towards the woman on multiple occasions between December 2013 and July 2015.<\/p>\n
He is also charged with assaulting her on two occasions in 2014.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old is further charged with raping another woman \u201con various occasions\u201d between 2018 and 2019, as well as offences involving two other women.<\/p>\n
Robertson denies a total of eight charges over a 16-year period from 2004 and 2020.<\/p>\n
Giving evidence at the High Court in Glasgow on Tuesday, one of the women said she met Robertson in 2012 or 2013, just as she was coming to the end of drama school.<\/p>\n
Addressing the trial by video-link, the 40-year-old said Robertson was initially \u201cquite charming\u201d but his behaviour soon changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis behaviour became quite controlling, emotionally controlling, manipulative,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time that would escalate and there would be threats of physical violence and then eventually physical violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said he tried to \u201cwedge (her) apart\u201d from people she was close to, including her friends and mother, saying he used to \u201cpick an argument\u201d whenever she was due to meet them.<\/p>\n
She also described him as a \u201cviolent alcoholic\u201d, saying he drank \u201ca lot\u201d and was \u201cin and out\u201d of Alcoholics Anonymous throughout their relationship.<\/p>\n
She said if he was around when he was drunk he would speak to her in an \u201caggressive, disrespectful\u201d way, making her feel \u201cawful\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cHe would call me a bitch, and he would just be derogatory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to describe his tone, she said: \u201cHarsh \u2013 like venom, is the best adjective I can think to describe it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost like you are spitting the words.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said in 2013 the pair had gone on holiday to a cabin in north-east Scotland, and that Robertson \u201cdrank a lot throughout the whole trip\u201d.<\/p>\n
She recounted one occasion during the trip when they had been on their way to a tourist spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was driving, we were in the car somewhere and he started shouting at me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was over directions, he just flew off the handle and flung the car around.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she had been \u201creally scared\u201d as she was \u201ctrapped\u201d in his car with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really obvious to me I was in a dangerous situation with this person, both in the car\u2026 but also in a wider sense in the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also recounted an argument in September 2014 when Robertson become \u201cthreatening\u201d and \u201caggressive\u201d.<\/p>\n
She told the court: \u201cI was scared and something happened where I was cowering because I thought he was going to hit me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he saw that he said \u2018if you think I am going to hit you then I will hit you\u2019, and he lunged at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell on to the bed and had my hands and arms over my head.\u201d<\/p>\n
She told the court he then left the room \u2013 but despite being \u201cso afraid\u201d she did not know how to get out of his flat, so she pretended to be asleep.<\/p>\n
She also recounted an incident in December 2014 when she said the pair had been having an argument and she had \u201cended up on the floor\u201d.<\/p>\n
She told the court: \u201cHe dragged me by my hair from the bedroom out into the hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to make it stop, I was trying to grab on to anything to make it stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said once he let go she stood up and told him \u201cwe are finished, it\u2019s over\u201d.<\/p>\n
The woman said she broke off the relationship in early 2015, when he reacted badly to her going on a night out with new colleagues, and Robertson then sent her an \u201cobsessive amount\u201d of phone calls and texts, and later emails.<\/p>\n
Robertson\u2019s lawyer, Gary Allan KC, disputed that the alleged assaults had taken place at all.<\/p>\n
He put forward a different account of both events, which she rejected.<\/p>\n
The lawyer also disputed that his client had behaved in a \u201ccontrolling\u201d or \u201cmanipulative\u201d manner towards her, suggesting that Robertson had been \u201centitled\u201d to dislike her friends and family.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, the court heard evidence from another of Robertson\u2019s alleged victims, whom he is accused of assaulting \u201con various occasions\u201d, and towards whom he is accused of acting in a \u201cdisorderly\u201d manner.<\/p>\n
She told the court that \u201cover time\u201d Robertson began acting in a \u201ccontrolling manner\u201d towards her.<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old said she was not \u201callowed\u201d to meet friends or colleagues, and that Robertson would start arguments just as she was about to leave to meet them.<\/p>\n
She also said that, when drunk, he would be verbally abusive towards her and, at times, he behaved in a physically aggressive way.<\/p>\n
She gave one example in 2007 of having been doing some work at home, with papers spread out on the kitchen floor, while he was \u201csat drinking\u201d in the front room.<\/p>\n
She told the court: \u201cHe had a bottle of wine in his hand and he just comes up, didn\u2019t say anything, and just poured it over myself and the (papers).\u201d<\/p>\n
She also recounted an incident later that year when an argument between them \u201cescalated\u201d rapidly, during which he punched the fridge, leaving dents in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was at this point I was pretty much being chased around the house,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to get away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trial, before Lady Drummond, continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former River City star is alleged to have behaved in a \u201cthreatening or abusive manner\u201d towards the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-221197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}