Ched Evans has been found not guilty of raping a 19-year-old woman.
The Chesterfield footballer, 27, was accused of assaulting her in a Premier Inn hotel in Wales in May 2011.
The former Welsh international was found guilty of rape in 2012 and served half of his five year prison sentence, but the conviction was later quashed and a retrial ordered.
And today he was found not guilty of rape Cardiff Crown Court.
The jury, made up of seven women and five men, deliberated for just two hours before reaching their verdict.
When the retrial began two weeks ago the jury were instructed by Mrs Justice Nicola Davies, the judge presiding over the trial, to disregard any previous publicity the case has had.
“There has been publicity in respect of these legal proceedings. If you have heard or read about it, that is the proceedings, in the newspaper, television, radio or social media, you must ignore it,” she told them.
When today’s verdict was read out, the BBC reported “gasps and cries” in the public gallery “with members of Mr Evans’s group, including his fiancee, Natasha Massey, breaking down”.
Judge Davies told him: “Mr Evans you are discharged.”
Addressing the jury, she added: “I want to thank each one of you for the care you have brought to this case.”
Evans left the dock and immediately went to embrace Miss Massey, with whom he has a child.
This is the scene outside Cardiff Crown Court as photographers wait for Ched Evans and his family to leave court pic.twitter.com/MAXTPzjcP7
— Liz Day (@liz_ann_day) October 14, 2016
The striker, who previously has also played for Manchester City and Sheffield United, always denied the charge, insisting that the woman had allowed him to “join in” after she had sex with Clayton McDonald, a former team-mate of Evans.
McDonald was in the hotel room in Rhyl when he sent a text to Evans which read “I’ve got a bird”. Evans then joined them in the room and had sex with the woman. The defence claimed she was too drunk to consent to sex.
After the trial concluded Evans stood on the steps outside the court as his solicitor Shaun Draycott read a statement:
Solicitor Shaun Draycott reads Ched Evans' full statement after being found not guilty of rape https://t.co/IJG7VJkAtm
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 14, 2016
In it, he said: “I am overwhelmed with relief.
“Thanks go to my friends and family, most notably my fiancee Natasha who chose, perhaps incredibly, to support me in my darkest hour.
“Whilst my innocence has now been established, I wish to make it clear that I wholeheartedly apologise to anyone who might have been affected by the events of the night in question.”
