A CARDENDEN man has been locked up after being convicted of raping a mum of three.

Luke Moore, 28, of Kirkburn Drive, had denied attacking the woman in her home in Glenrothes in January 2020 and lodged a special defence claiming that she consented to sex with him.

But after hearing the victim's version of events, a jury at the High Court in Livingston rejected his claim that he was innocent.

Jurors took just a few hours to return a majority verdict finding the accused guilty as charged.

The court was told that Moore had known his victim.

On the day of the offence he turned up at her house and accompanied her to pick up papers at Fife Council offices in Glenrothes, despite her saying she didn’t want him there.

When they returned to her home he removed her clothing, lay on top of her and started having consensual sex with her.

However, she gave evidence that she changed her mind when intercourse with him started being “rough and sore”.

She said: “I remember him having sex with me and it hurting – me asking him to stop and me using the excuse that it was my nephew’s birthday and I needed to be there for him coming home.

“Another excuse was that I needed a cigarette and I told him I was too hot and I was going to pass out so he would get up and open the windows.”

She said she had asked Moore to stop having sex with her “more than once” – pushing on his shoulders to try to get him off her.

She said: “I told him it was sore, to stop, and he didn’t. He continued.”

Despite her increasingly desperate protests, she said, he pinned her down in her living room and refused to let her up.

In messages to her aunt within hours of the rape the mum blamed herself for being “a dirty stop-out”.

She told her aunt: “It’s horrible. I feel horrible. I’m the one who brought it on myself.”

Her aunt messaged back: “He’s the one that kept it going when you didn’t want to.”

In later messages the victim added: “I should have got him off me but I didn’t even f****** move.

“I’m going to get into the shower to see if I can get this manky feeling off me."

In further texts to a male friend, she revealed she had tried to get rid of the accused by pretending the friend was visiting her on his way home from work to take her out for dinner.

She told him: “I panicked and said I wanted to go for a fag and a drink. He said I wasn’t allowed to."

Following the jury’s guilty verdict Judge Alistair Watson KC called for background reports and remanded Moore in custody until sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow on June 29.

His name was added to the sex offenders’ register with immediate effect and told him he would learn the length of time he would remain subject to notification requirements when he was sentenced.

In addition, he said details of Moore’s conviction would be notified to Scottish Ministers under legislation for the protection of vulnerable groups.