A British tycoon has been found not guilty of forcing a Bermudian woman to perform oral sex on him on a beach in Australia.

Gregory Cox, 32, met the woman, who has not been named, at The Bucket List bar near Bondi Beach in Sydney in January 2012.

The woman, who was on vacation in Australia, had earlier taken surfing lessons on the beach. She claimed she had taken a walk with Mr Cox to the beach after spending several hours drinking at the bar.

She remembered that, at one point, Mr Cox was sitting against a concrete wall while she had her back to the ocean.

At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Huw Baker said: “She recalls being on her knees and she tried to stand up but being unable to stand up because something was holding her down.

“She was trying to get up but felt the accused’s hand on the back of her head. She recalls being terrified at that point.”

Mr Cox is then said to have forced the woman to perform a sex act on him.

Mr Cox was alleged to have told the woman that he had “a lot of money” and warned that if she filed a complaint with police “it would go nowhere”.

The woman claimed she hit Mr Cox on the thigh and told him: “Please stop, please stop — I don’t want this.”

The woman was later found by a couple who took her to a police station where officers noted that she was “distressed, shivering and crying”.

But defence lawyers claimed that the woman’s behaviour was “entirely consistent with a willing participant”.

Mr Cox had claimed that the woman had “freaked out” after the sex act and ran off, leaving her handbag on the beach.

The millionaire businessman, who runs an online shopping company and finance group in the UK, later handed the handbag to police and also returned to the bar to ask if anyone knew the woman.

“If he is a rapist, is that consistent?” attorney Graeme Turnbull asked the court.

After a three-week trial, the jury at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court yesterday found Mr Cox not guilty of two counts of having sexual intercourse without consent.