A jury yesterday cleared a 22-year-old man of a sexual assault charge after a trial lasting five days.

A Supreme Court jury found the man not guilty of the charge after approximately four hours of deliberation.

The court heard that the complainant, also aged 22, attended Docksider’s pub on Front Street, Hamilton, with several friends on November 2, 2019.

She and her group had several drinks and separated as the night went on.

The defendant, whom the woman knew and considered a friend, offered to take her home, but the pair instead attended a Hallowe’en-themed party at Bailey’s Bay Cricket Club.

The complainant, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the court that she had no memory of the night after getting to the party and that she only remembered waking up in her bed the next morning.

After contacting the defendant, who also cannot be named, she discovered that the pair left the party and went to Admiralty House in Pembroke, where they smoked cannabis and later had sex twice.

She told the court that she was too intoxicated at the time to give consent and claimed that the defendant had taken advantage of her while inebriated.

But the defence argued that he had every reason to believe the act was consensual and told the court that she initiated intercourse.

He also argued that she was not too inebriated to consent because she rode his motorcycle to Admiralty House with him as a pillion passenger.

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