A TEENAGE girl has been the victim of a serious sexual assault near a children's play area in the Scottish Borders
A TEENAGE girl has been the victim of a serious sexual assault near a children's play area in the Scottish Borders
The 17-year-old victim was attacked near a play park in a housing estate in Galashiels.
The assault took place around 12.15am yesterday in woodland near Langlee Community Centre in Selkirkshire.
Police Scotland sealed off the play park and the woodland area in Primrose Bank as forensic officers combed the area for evidence.
Officers are appealing for anyone who may have been in the area or seen anything at the time to come forward urgently.
Locals raised concerns as the attack happened close to where a woman was subjected to a serious sexual assault after a man entered her home just 11 weeks ago.
The 36-year-old was at home in the Langlee area when a man entered and subjected her to a "sustained and violent attack".
Police said after that attack that they would carry out high-visibility patrols in the area.
A 32-year-old man has appeared in court in connection with the serious sexual assault in August.
Residents have told of their shock on social networking sites with some saying they heard it was a rape.
Agnieszka Ciszewska wrote that it was not the first such attack, adding: "What's going on here. I live very close. I have small kids and I'm scared now."
Some feared it may have been linked to a party that had taken place in the community centre.
One local Sally Howes said: "The tape-off area starts at the back of my house and I believe goes down to the park where the body was found at about 4am. It's scary to wake up and see that outside your garden.
"Police haven't been round to question any body here. Worrying though, we've a lot of kids on this area. My thoughts go out to the victim and (the) family."
Some were concerned that hours after locals raised concern about was happening, there had been no statement released by the police. It led to speculation that there had been a murder.
Local man Keith Guthrie said: "Some kind of statement was needed. My daughter had been talking about this terrible incident since this morning and surely better to say something rather than let the rumour mills run free..?"
Nobody at the community centre was available for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article