A MAN who was accused of bursting into a parked lorry before raining blows on the driver and stealing a silver chain worth hundreds of pounds has been cleared of any wrong-doing.

Throughout his brief trial at Oxford Crown Court, Adam Winch, of Oxford Hill, Witney, had always denied the single count of robbery.

Prosecutors during the case had claimed that the 49-year old, together with an unknown accomplice, had carried out an attack inside a lorry parked at the Station Lane industrial estate in Witney on the night of February 24 last year.

John Brotherton, the barrister speaking on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service had claimed that Mr Winch had gone into the lorry before he and the other male pummelled their alleged victim Corey Buckingham.

He told the court that after the violence inside the parked lorry the silver necklace, valued at £225, had been snatched.

Speaking of the incident from the witness box Mr Buckingham told jurors that he had been out watching rugby in the town with a friend before retiring to his lorry with food at about 6pm.

Speaking of what he had claimed happened next he told the court: “The door opened and [Mr Winch] and the other man I don’t know…climbed in the lorry and started shouting at me.

“[He was] about a foot away from my face swearing continually and he had his arm out and grabbed me by the chain and he pulled the chain off my neck.”

Jurors, however, threw out the allegation and instead sided with Mr Winch, agreeing that he was innocent of the charge, on Tuesday.

The panel took just one hour and one minute to unanimously clear him of the single count of robbery.

Presiding Judge Zoe Smith thanked the jury panel for their dedication to the case and Mr Winch was duly discharged from the dock.