A man accused of subjecting a 14-year-old girl to
A man accused of subjecting a 14-year-old girl to a
night-long sex ordeal has been cleared after he told a jury
she seduced him.
Friends of Vernon Blackwood, 32, cheered in the Old Bailey
public gallery and he thanked the jury as he walked free.
The girl told the court Blackwood had offered to walk her
to her bus stop when he met her on the street.
She claimed that he dragged her into his flat where she was
punched, raped twice and forced to indulge in other sex acts.
The schoolgirl left Blackwood’s flat in Hensford Gardens,
Sydenham, the following morning and called the police.
Blackwood was still asleep when the police came to call later
that day.
But he insisted that the girl had consented to sex and he
had no idea she was underage.
‘I didn’t know that she was only 14.
She wanted to make love
to me,’ he told detectives.
Blackwood told the court the girl never indicated that she
was too young for sex and he thought she was much older.
‘She was definitely after me.
I know she wanted sex with me,’
he said.
He claimed the girl wanted to go back to his flat after he
met her on the bus stop.
‘There was never a time when I thought she was not consenting.
We both wanted sex,’ he told the jury.
Blackwood said the girl was lying when she said she pleaded:
‘No Vernon, no.
‘
‘She never said that at all,’ he insisted.
When the girl was examined by a doctor she was found to have
bruises consistent with her claim that he had punched her.
But Blackwood said: ‘I’ve got no idea how she got those
injuries.
‘
The jury cleared him of false imprisonment, indecent assault,
performing an unnatural sex act and one charge of rape on September
28 last year.
After five hours deliberation the jury could not reach a
decision on a further charge of rape and one of assault causing
actual bodily harm.
Judge George Bathurst-Norman reminded them that in his
closing speech prosecutor Mr Nicholas Coleman said it was ‘an
all or nothing case.
‘
Mr Coleman told the jury it would be difficult for them to
find Blackwood guilty on some charges and not guilty on others
And the judge said: ‘Having cleared the defendant on the
second rape charge there is no evidential basis on which you
could reach a different verdict on the first.
‘
‘The Court of Appeal would throw it out in a minute.
‘
The judge then directed the jury to find Blackwood not guilty
of the first rape charge.
He then discharged the jury from giving reaching a verdict
on the assault charge.
The prosecution offered no evidence on that charge and a not
guilty verdict was recorded for that offence.
Blackwood had spent six months in custody on remand.
ENDS
