A FORMER university student who raped a woman at his family's home in Balloch has lost an appeal against his conviction.

Ross Wilkinson attacked his victim at a bungalow in the grounds of the Pier Road property – and afterwards boasted to a friend that he had "banged a burd".

Wilkinson, 21, denied raping the 20-year-old on April 3, 2016 during a trial at the High Court in Dumbarton last year.

But a jury found him guilty of the crime.

He had maintained that the sex was consensual but the woman told his trial that she told him more than once not to do it.

The trial judge, Lord Uist, told him: "You forced her to have sexual intercourse with you while restraining her in a bed.

"She left the bungalow suddenly in the early hours of the morning in a state of distress and took a taxi home."

The judge added: "What concerns me is the content of text messages which passed between you and a male friend before and after the event which indicate you have a deplorable attitude to females which is in need of severe correction."

After the trial, lawyers acting for Wilkinson challenged his conviction, claiming that the judge had erred in directions he gave to jurors before they went out to consider their verdict.

But Scotland's senior judge, the Lord Justice General, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lady Paton and Lord Drummond Young at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, refused the appeal and said no miscarriage of justice had occurred.

Lord Carloway said the case once more raised the issue of the nature of directions in rape cases where the victim said forcible intercourse had occurred and the appellant said it was consensual.

The trial heard that Wilkinson had been with the woman at a birthday celebration at a nightclub in Glasgow before returning to Balloch where the sex took place.

The jury was told that after the woman got home, she contacted a friend and revealed what had happened to her and later spoke to her sister.

First offender Wilkinson contacted her and apologised to her and said in one text message: "My actions were horrendous. I don't know what was going through my head."

The court was told Wilkinson had consumed a large amount of drink and taken cocaine at the time.

After sentencing the then 20-year-old to detention last year Lord Uist told him he would be placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.