A woman who was repeatedly attacked by a former paratrooper yesterday urged other victims to come forward.
Alan Adsley was jailed for 13 years for raping three women over a four-year period but now one of his victims has taken the brave decision to speak out.
Bernadette Cowan believes “there’s other women out there who have suffered because of him”. Adsley boasted about his attacks on 52-year-old Bernadette after drugging and raping her at her home in Fife.
The dad of four also raped his other victims, aged 44 and 32, at their homes in Kirkcaldy. Bernadette, a grandmother, said she had known Adsley since he was 17 and trusted him as a friend before he began his sickening attacks on her.
Adsley trained as a boxer during 14 years in the Army, when he served four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, before later working as a roofer.
During a six-day trial at the High Court in Stirling, the 40-year-old claimed boxing in the Army “kind of messed up my head” but insisted: “I’m not a rapist.”
Bernadette said: “For him to use the Army as some kind of excuse for his behaviour is just wrong. When I realised what he’d done to me, he convinced everyone in my family I was telling lies.”
She added: “Adsley has cost me so much and I’m glad about his sentence but I fear there are other women or girls out there who have suffered because of him and I want them to come forward.
“I can move on now. I’ve been to hell and back but I welcome the sentence and I hope other victims know that justice is possible, even when no one else believes what’s happened to you.”
Adsley claimed in court he’d never had sex with Bernadette and alleged sex with the other two was consensual. But a jury took just 45 minutes to find him guilty of the attacks which took place between 2016 and 2020.
Adsley is already serving five years for attempting to murder a doorman after he was refused entry to Kitty’s nightclub in Kirkcaldy.
Sentencing him at the High Court in Inverness for the sex attacks, Lord Armstrong said: “Your conduct towards these women was violent and controlling. Rape is a grave crime and all women must be protected.”
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