R3pe: Footballers Offered Victim £115k To Drop Legal Case & Even Tried To Get Her Legal Aid Cut

Two footballers named as rapists in a landmark civil case tried to get their victim to drop legal bid by offering her £115,000, she has claimed.

 Denise Clair says striker David Goodwillie and his former Dundee United team-mate David Robertson made her three cash offers to end her challenge.

Denise made legal history as the only woman in Scotland to successfully sue rapists and she said:

"They tried to buy me off - not the action of men who still claim they did nothing wrong."

When she refused to accept their money, Goodwillie legal team made a failed attempt to have her legal aid cut so she could not go ahead with her case.

But Denise rejected the offers of an out-of-court settlement. The final one came just weeks before the historic case which this week saw them publicly named by a Law Lord as rapists.

Denise sued them in the Court of Session after the Crown Office in Scotland refused to prosecute the pair.

She claimed that, on January 2, 2011, they took her to an empty house in West Lothian and raped her.

Mother-of-one Denise, 30, said that when their attempts to buy her off failed, their lawyers tried to stop her legal aid to stop the case going ahead.

"Mercifully, they failed,” she said. “The three offers made to settle would all have involved me keeping quiet. It was their way of trying to gag me."

Goodwillie, 27, and Robertson, 30, have always protested their innocence and claimed before Lord Armstrong that Denise, a former Scottish Prison Service careers adviser, had been a willing sexual partner.

But in an unprecedented judgment, the Law Lord condemned the footballers as liars and rapists and awarded Denise £100,000 in damages.

Last night Denise said: "It was never about money. Truth doesn't have a price. It was about exposing them for who they are."

"Do innocent men who say they've done nothing wrong offer £115,000 to settle a case in private? I don't think so."

"Lord Armstrong awarded me £100,000 - less than the players wanted to buy me off with - and most of it will be swallowed up by legal costs.

 I don't mind though. All that matters is that I am vindicated.

"I wanted the truth to emerge and no amount of money would have bought my silence or made up for the suffering I, and my family, endured.

"At one stage, during the pre-trial meetings, my QC suggested to the other side that a settlement £120,000 would have been more appropriate'.

"But I would never have accepted anything out of court. I was never for sale."

Denise's only regret remains that former Scotland star Goodwillie, who now plays for Plymouth Argyle in England, and Robertson, who plays for Scottish side Cowdenbeath, did not face criminal charges.

She said: "I have been let down by the justice system. They should be behind bars. The police pursued the case but the Crown Office decided not to proceed."

Goodwillie - who is said to be considering an appeal - and Robertson both deny raping Denise and insist she consented to sex.

Neither player could be reached for comment.