Scottish legal history has been made in a rape trial after a jury heard evidence from the other side of the world via a live link.

A Scots musician living in Australia told the jury how a "Turkish gentleman" made "amorous overtures" to a Swedish backpacker.

For an hour-and-a-half television equipment linked the High Court in Edinburgh to a magistrates' court in Brisbane so Ossian Macurcrin could tell his story.

Trial judge Lady Smith told jurors it was the first time such an international link had been used to take evidence in a Scottish courtroom.

Keep your voice up so the people in Scotland can hear you

Michael Halliday Brisbane magistrate

Afterwards she described the success of the exercise as "very reassuring".

The relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing were able to watch court proceedings at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands on closed-circuit television.

Bayram Cinci, 31, a German national of Turkish descent living in London, denies raping a 26-year-old Swedish tourist in a backpackers' hostel in Oban, in July last year.

Mr Macurcrin took first an oath under Queensland law and then under Scottish law.

Brisbane magistrate, Michael Halliday, told him: "Keep your voice up so the people in Scotland can hear you."

Mr Macurcrin said he was working as a tour guide in July last year and, while on a bus, produced a couple of bottles of whisky from a previous distillery visit which were handed round.

'Quite distressed'

The court heard that later, in the hostel, the Swedish backpacker was sick and he took her to a shower to clean herself and sober up.

As he did so "the Turkish gentleman" - who was passing - tried to get into the shower cubicle as well.

Mr Macurcrin said that it struck him that the man's advances were not welcome.

The Lockerbie trial used TV links

After being pulled away, he shrugged and went towards a nearby toilet, the court heard.

Mr Macurcrin said about an hour later the manager of the hostel spoke to him.

He went back to the communal showers to find the Swedish woman naked except for a towel.

"She was quite distressed. She was crying. She had her knees drawn up to her chin and, obviously, covering herself with the towell but she was obviously distressed."

The eight men and seven women on the jury had to be in their places by 0900 BST on Wednesday - 1800 in Brisbane - an hour earlier than the usual court starting time.

The trial continues.