At first glance, the trial precognition of the sexual crime committed against Ann Innes reads like many other cases of rape or sexual assault that were heard by the criminal courts in the nineteenth century. On Wednesday 27 September 1865, seventeen-year-old Ann was sent by her mother from her home near the burgh of Lossiemouth in north-east Scotland, to fetch milk from a local farm. As the oldest daughter in a family of nine children, the walk along the field-lined track close to the sea, which connected her home to the farm, had become part of her daily routine.
She carried a basket to collect butter for a neighbour, and a bottle to be filled with cream for another. Having completed her errands, Ann began her journey home, but was met by fifteen-year-old John Murray, a farm servant and apprentice carpenter, who was driving a horse and cart for his Master. John so frightened Ann that she dropped her pail and basket, and ran away into the Links next to the seashore, but he followed ...