A HORLEY man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl has been found not guilty.
John Harber, of Court Lodge Road, was alleged to have raped the girl – who cannot be named for legal reasons – on a sofa while holding a pillow over her face after a party they both attended in August 2012.
The 33-year-old was found not guilty by a jury at Guildford Crown Court on Monday.
Last week, the court heard the teenager did not formally report the alleged assault until May 2013.
At the start of the trial last Monday, the jury were played a police interview from May 2013 in which the alleged victim said that while both she and Mr Harber were lying on a sofa, he took her clothes off and assaulted her on a sofa while a friend slept on another sofa in the same room.
The jury heard from that friend told who said in a police interview she saw Harber "hugging" and "kissing" her friend's neck while the three were in the room, as well as hearing her ask for help, but did not see the alleged attack.
During a closing speech to the jury on Friday, Brian Aldred, defending, described the girl's allegation as a "fantasy" which had "snowballed out of control".
He said the girl's account to police was inconsistent with the one given to friends in the months following the alleged incident.
The court heard she sent messages to a friend claiming to have been raped not once but five times, and in a different location – messages the teenager denied sending.
Mr Aldred said: "That is the clearest indication of all of the evidence we have got that this is a fantasy. That it is a creative story. That it is not something that really happened."
In his closing speech to the jury, prosecutor Walton Hornsby said Mr Harber had "fallen to temptation" in circumstances where his "inhibitions were released by drink".
During the trial, Mr Harber had admitted sleeping in the room that night, but denied being drunk and said the two girls were not there.
