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A JURY yesterday took less than an hour to clear an Oxford man of raping a 15-year-old girl.

Jamie Hall, 25, of Fettiplace Road, Barton, was found not guilty of one charge of rape, one of sexual assault and two of sexual activity with a child.

Before retiring to consider their verdict at Oxford Crown Court, Judge Patrick Eccles QC told jurors: "Plainly this is a case in which someone is telling you some lies."

Mr Hall had told police the girl said she was raped because she didn't like it that he had sex with her mother hours before the incident on August 10 last year, or because he stopped having sex with her after feeling guilty about it.

Sumita Mahtab, defending, said there had been too many inconsistencies in the girl's evidence and that of her mother.

She said: "If they were telling the truth there should be some consistency, but there is none."

Ms Mahtab told jurors: "The girl says she said 'stop' twice but she accepts she didn't even scream. There were people there - surely she would have called out if she was being attacked and they would have heard? The reason she didn't is because there was no rape."

Hall said the girl "encouraged and enjoyed it", Ms Mahtab told the jury. He only stopped when he thought about his family, she said.

Ms Mahtab said Hall had been led to believe the girl was 16 or over and that he had been "consistent in his version of events right from the beginning".

"He was calm and compliant from the moment he was arrested," she said. "He said if he had known her age he would not have gone near her."

8:57am Thursday 3rd July 2008

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