Nightclub boss cleared of hotel assault

A VIP nightclub manager and his friend have been cleared of raping a woman in a hotel room after a jury deliberated for less than two hours. Billy Brannigan, 61, who ran the exclusive Cobden Club, was accused of assaulted the woman with Chris Agathocleous, 55, after she drunkenly passed out in the room in 1997. The woman claimed she awoke to find Brannigan and Agathocleous on top of her before freeing herself and fleeing naked into the street. But…