UNIVERSITY graduate Oliver Ward wept with relief after being cleared of raping a mum-of-three after a stag night.

It took a jury more than four hours to find the 29-year-old not guilty of rape after a five-day trial at Oxford Crown Court.

The 46-year-old woman, who knew Ward from a fitness club, claimed he grabbed her by the neck and raped her beside the towpath, off Park End Street in Oxford.

Ward, of Toot Baldon, near Garsington, maintained throughout that she consented to sex after they bumped into each other in the early hours of July 11 last year.

During the trial, the woman was quizzed about a group sex session she had with two of Ward's friends a month before the incident.

She was then forced to return to court after it was revealed that police had withheld evidence about an affair she was having with a neighbour.

Police had said the evidence was "not relevant" but the judge described the decision not to give it as regrettable.

The case came in the same week that Home Secretary Jack Straw voiced concerns about "unnecessary questioning of a rape victim's previous sexual history" at the Police Federation's annual conference.

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