Father Michael Wright walked free from court today after a jury cleared him of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy helper more than 30 years ago.

Fr Wright, 69, was accused of plying the schoolboy with drink and repeatedly molesting him at a church in Lewisham, London, in the early 70s.

But Mr Wright, vicar of St Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford, since 1980, insisted the alleged abuse was a 'figment' of his accuser's imagination.

And the jury at Blackfriars Crown Court cleared him of 12 sex charges after he said: "I'm not a paedophile."

The complainant, now a 44-year-old man, claimed he was sexually assaulted and the victim of a 'group rape' incident involving Wright and a number of other men after a service.

Giving evidence Fr Wright, who was arrested last year, insisted he had done nothing inappropriate to the boy.

He said he had only a "very hazy memory" of the church helper.

"I would have passed him in the street I'm sure," he said.

He added there was "absolutely not any truth in the claims".

Edinburgh-born Wright, of the vicarage at St Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford, was cleared of six counts of a serious sexual offence and six of indecent assault between December 1973 and December 1976.

After his arrest, Wright stood down from his post and his role as a governor at the church-aided St Barnabas Primary School in Jericho, in Hart Street.