Teenager carved his name into girl's skin during campaign of abuse

A youth who carved his name into a teenage girl’s flesh with a knife during a campaign of abuse against the victim has been remanded in custody.

The victim, now aged 20, told a court that Charlie Swain cut both his first name and second name into her and told her if he marked her “everyone would know I was his.”

She said Swain cut her more than once and added: “He would do it over the same area.” She said: “I still have scars now to this day.”

A friend of the victim was on a night out with her in Edinburgh when she revealed the scar on her mid-upper thigh to her. The friend said: “It said ‘Charlie’ as if he had taken a knife and dug it in”.

The friend told the High Court in Edinburgh: “It seemed pretty fresh. There was a little bit of dried blood on it.”

She said: “I told her that was not normal and she said he had inflicted it on her. She was pretty upset.”

The victim said that during abuse directed at her by Swain, he would shout, lose his temper, throw things, slam doors and “get into my face”.

She said he was drinking and taking drugs, and the violence towards her escalated as she was slapped, pushed, pulled by the hair, choked and punched in the throat.

“There were also occasions when he would threaten me with a knife,” she said.

The woman said that on January 21, 2024, Swain attacked her again and during the violence, he produced handcuffs. She said: “I can’t remember whether he got them on both of my wrists. He definitely got them on one. I am not sure about the other.”

She said: “When he was choking me, he told me I wouldn’t make it to work on Monday.”

She was asked what she took that to mean and replied: “That he was going to kill me. I was scared. That was the first time I really thought he might kill me.”

She said Swain then got a belt and added: “He began to whip me with the belt everywhere. I remember putting my hands up to my face.”

“I think I was pleading with him to stop. He was laughing when he was hitting me with the belt,” she told the court.

She said Swain had then got a large knife and held it to her neck. “I thought I was going to die,” she said.

He told her he was going to go to the bathroom, and she took the opportunity to phone the police.

Swain, 20, of Edinburgh, pleaded not guilty to a series of charges during his trial. He was convicted of engaging in a course of abusive behaviour towards the woman in 2023 and 2024 at locations in Edinburgh. He was also found guilty of assaulting the woman to the danger of her life on January 21, 2024.

He was also convicted of a course of abusive conduct towards another girl in 2020 in Edinburgh, during which he shouted and swore at her, threatened her and struck and kicked her.

He also continued to have sex with the teenager after she withdrew her consent on one occasion and recorded her on his mobile phone during consensual sex at a toilet in the city’s St James Quarter without her consent.

Swain was acquitted of further alleged sexual offending charges involving the victim.

The trial judge, Lord Summers, deferred sentence on Swain for the preparation of a background report and he was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing.