A GARDENER has been found not guilty of raping a 45-year-old woman after meeting at a Chelmsford nightclub.
A jury decided unanimously to clear Alin Calinciuc of a single charge of rape at Chelmsford Crown Court today (February 6) after about two hours of deliberation.
Mr Calinciuc and the woman, who had become drunk and had lost her friend, were both in Chicago's in Moulsham Street in the early hours of Monday, August 5, 2013.
The woman said she could remember Mr Calinciuc dragging her away from the club at about 1.50am.
The prosecution alleged the 24-year-old Romanian national, of Manor Road, Chelmsford, forced the woman, from Harlow, into non-consensual sex in his bedroom in the early hours of the Monday.
She said she awoke in a dingy bedroom and later that day told her GP she had a sore vagina and bruising to her lips, arms, thighs, lower legs and shoulder.
But in CCTV the two can be seen dancing together in the club, together in the smoking area and together leaving the club holding hands.
While cross examining the woman, defence barrister Jacqueline Carey said: "You were seen dancing with Mr Calincuic, your arms on each other, possibly you kissing him but certainly your heads moving towards each other and you going out towards the smoking area with him.
"At no stage there are you being dragged or pulled."
At one point the woman, who remains anonymous for legal reasons, appears to pull Mr Calinciuc away from talking to a doorman.
"I suggest that is you and he walking off together perfectly happy and perfectly consensually," she added.
"You say no it wasn't, but you can't remember though can you and it looks like you did.
"You don't want to think that any of this happened to you but it did and you did go off with him quite happy that evening."
When asked by prosecutor Mr Casey why she was making the allegation however, she answered: "I would not have sex with a man."
The woman, a mother, claimed she had not had sex with a man since conceiving her son 19 years ago.
Today's verdict follows a five-day trial which was interrupted sporadically by other court cases.
