Court hears Knightswood schoolgirl was forced to eat cat food

A schoolgirl told a court she ate cat food when there was no other food in the house.

The 18-year-old claimed she was told there was no money for food and rarely ate meals in the house she lived in with Derek Carrick.

She said during the time she stayed at his Kirkton Avenue flat in Knightswood she was bullied “because of the way she smelled and looked”.

The witness said there was a cat that stayed in the kitchen but at times the litter tray was over flowing and made it smell.

She was giving evidence at Glasgow Sheriff Court at the trial of Carrick, 42, from Holehouse Road, Knightswood, who is accused of wilfully neglecting and ill-treating three girls then 10, nine and three, between February1, 2011 and October 31, 2013.

In evidence she said she lived with Carrick and two other girls when she was around 11 or 12 years-old and left when she was 13.

She said that they weren’t allowed in the living room unless she was going to the kitchen, and that was to try and make something to eat.

The girl said Carrick didn’t always make anything and “wasn’t always awake, sometimes he would be asleep for a long period of time”.

She was asked if she ate breakfast and said “most of the time, no” and that “there wasn’t anything there to eat”.

The witness told jurors “occasionally” Carrick made dinner.

She said: “Most of the time there wasn’t anything there and if there was, it wasn’t enough”.

Procurator fiscal depute Ruth Ross-Davie asked: “On occasion when there was no food, what did you do?”

She replied: “There was a few occasions I ate cat food.”

Asked if she told Carrick about that, the girl said: “I mentioned it a few times, his response was he didn’t have any money, it wasn’t his fault.”

She said the cat was kept in the kitchen and if there was clean litter, it would be changed but it would go “weeks and weeks on end” without it.

Jurors heard the bathroom in the flat smelled, and the bath had bugs in it.

The witness said: “I tried not to spend much time in there.”

The teenager said there was no sanitary products for her to use and Carrick didn't buy any.

She told the court: “There was never really anything like that in the house.”

Miss Ross-Davie asked if she had any difficulty with her hair and was “I had head lice continuously”.

She claimed her and the other girls had them and Carrick provided treatment that she tried to use on them but it “never seemed to work”.

She also said she was given second-hand black jogging bottoms for school.

During cross-examination by defence counsel Margaret Breslin the wintess told how she was made fun of at school because her clothes weren’t new.

Miss Breslin put to her: “You didn’t want to be different from all the others.”

The witness replied: “No, because it’s bad enough being bullied at school because of the way I smelled and the way I looked without having to get bullied for something else.”

She said she didn’t have the time or energy to wash her hair, and agreed a shower facility was in the flat.

Carrick denies the charge and the trial before sheriff Martin Jones QC continues.