A man is to stand trial accused of raping tragic teen Amber Niven months before her alleged murder.
Jamie Starrs, 19, is accused of sexually assaulting 16-year-old Amber when she was asleep or unconscious at a property in Bothwell, in June 2021 - just five months before her body was found in a Hamilton park in an unrelated incident in November that year.
Starrs, who is further accused of raping a second woman, is set to face trial later this year.
A huge police search was launched after Amber was reported missing from her home in Hamilton on November 26.
The teenager’s body was discovered near Cadzow Glen two days later.
Her brother, Connor Gibson, is charged with murdering her on the day she vanished with the intent to rape her.
Starrs is accused of raping Amber on June 8 or 9 when she was intoxicated through alcohol and asleep or unconscious and incapable of giving or withholding consent.
He is further accused of raping another woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on May 24 or 25, 2021 at the same Bothwell property, when the woman was intoxicated through alcohol and drugs and incapable of giving or withholding consent.
Starrs is also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by sending threatening messages to a man in a bid to compel the alleged victim to drop the allegations against him.
He faces two further charges of failing to comply with bail restrictions by entering a Lanarkshire town and failing to attend an identity parade.
Starrs was on bail at the time of all of the alleged offences and is set to face trial in June.
Amber’s murder trial is scheduled to get underway in July.
Prosecutors claim that Gibson, 20, removed his sister’s clothes and repeatedly inflicted blunt force trauma to her head and body.
He is then said to have strangled her with his hands. It is alleged that Gibson did this with intent to rape Amber.
Gibson faces further charges of attempting to defeat the ends of justice and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
These charges include claims that he got rid of the clothes he had been wearing and that he called the children’s home where she had been staying to pretend that she was still alive.
Gibson is also said to have told police he last saw his sister after she walked off from an argument near a community centre in Hamilton on the day of the alleged killing.
A second man has also appeared in court accused of inappropriately touching Amber’s remains after she died and hiding them under bushes and branches.
It is claimed that Stephen Corrigan, 44, found her body but did not alert police.
He is alleged to have committed a breach of the peace and attempted to defeat the ends of justice.
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