Liam Allan, 22, was on bail for almost two years and spent three days at Croydon Crown Court in the dock before his trial was ceased yesterday
A judge has called for an inquiry after the trial of a student accused of rape collapsed – following police failures.
Last night it was revealed that officers failed to hand over evidence proving his innocence.
Liam Allan, 22, was on bail for almost two years and spent three days at Croydon Crown Court in the dock before his trial was ceased yesterday.
The judge called for an inquiry at the ‘very highest level’ of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and a review of disclosure of evidence by the Metropolitan Police.
He advised of ‘serious miscarriages of justice’ when he heard that documents were not always sent to defence lawyers in order to keep costs at a minimum.
Mr Allan, a criminology undergraduate at Greenwich University, was accused of six counts of rape and six sexual assaults against a woman who claimed she did not enjoy sex.
If found guilty, the 22-year-old was told he would be jailed for at least ten years.
The young man, however, claimed the sexual intercourse had been consensual.
He said the woman involved had acted maliciously because he was starting university and would not see her again.
Mr Allan’s lawyers were denied access to the woman’s telephone records after police insisted there was nothing of interest for the defence or prosecution.
Meanwhile, when a new prosecution barrister took over the case – the day before the trial started – he demanded police hand over the phone records.
A computer disk containing copies of 40,000 messages were taken from the handset, revealing that the woman had continuously pestered the undergraduate for ‘casual sex’.
She also told her friends that she enjoyed sex with him and even spoke about her fantasies of having violent sex and being raped by him.
Mr Allan’s lawyers were denied access to the woman’s telephone records after police insisted there was nothing of interest for the defence or prosecution
Prosecuting barrister Jerry Hayes said: ‘I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable’.
Mr Hayes, a former Tory MP, added: ‘There could have been a very serious miscarriage of justice, which could have led to a very significant period of imprisonment and life on the sex offenders register. It appears the [police] officer in the case has not reviewed the disk, which is quite appalling.’
Mr Allan told the Times outside of court: ‘I can’t explain the mental torture of the past two years. I feel betrayed by the system which I had believed would do the right thing – the system I want to work in.’
His mother Lorraine Allan, 46, told the paper: ‘In the current climate, in these sorts of cases, you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent.’
It comes after a string of rape cases were found to have fallen apart.
Friends Thady Duff, Leo Mahon, Patrick Foster, all 22, and James Martin, 20, were charged with gang-raping a young woman following the May Ball at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester, Gloucestershire in 2014.
It was alleged that the violent assault was filmed, and the footage circulated via Snapchat. But the trial at Gloucester Crown Court collapsed after it emerged that detectives had ‘cherry picked’ and ‘airbrushed’ the evidence.
A study of the alleged victim’s phone revealed that she had sent nude pictures of herself to one of the men in advance of the ball and also how she had given inconsistent accounts of a ‘threesome’ she took part in at an Army barracks five months after the alleged university rape.
Shockingly, none of this material was handed over to the prosecution or defence by an investigating police officer.
Royal Agricultural University students Mahon, Foster and Duff, and friend Martin, were cleared in 2016 after the prosecution offered no evidence.
Speaking at Croydon Crown Court, prosecuting barrister Jerry Hayes said: ‘I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable’
Bartolomeo Joly de Lotbiniere, 22, was accused of raping a geography student at York University after a night out downing cheap spirits and alcopops. His 19-year-old accuser said his advances were unwanted and that she froze in terror as Lotbiniere, also then 19, undressed her and carried her to bed in her halls of residence.
But she only reported Mr Joly de Lotbiniere to police 14 months after the alleged attack when he appeared on television in six episodes of the BBC2 quiz show University Challenge.
After such a long passage of time there was no forensic evidence, only individual testimonies, accounts from friends and text messages.
Mr Joly de Lotbiniere insisted what had happened was a ‘two way’, consensual one-night stand, saying : ‘Drunk or sober I would never rape anybody.’ After two trials spread over seven months — the first ended in a hung jury — he was found not guilty of rape and sexual assault in September.