MP Nigel Evans cleared of sex offences

The jury found the 56-year-old MP not guilty of one count of rape, five sexual assaults, one attempted sexual assault and two indecent assaults.

He was alleged to have used his “powerful” political influence to take advantage of his alleged victims but the defence pointed out inconsistencies in various witness accounts and questioned the credibility of the evidence against him.

Evans cried in the dock after hearing the verdicts and his supporters erupted into cheers, it was reported. Speaking outside of court, he said that nothing in his life would ever be the same.

In a statement, Evans said: “As many of you know I’ve gone through 11 months of hell. The fact is I’ve got work to do. It’s the work that I’ve done for the last 22 years so this isn’t a time for celebration or euphoria.

Read Michael Crick's blog: what will the future hold for Nigel Evans?

“Bill Roache just a few weeks ago from this very spot said there are no winners in these cases and that’s absolutely right there are no winners, so no celebrations.

The not guilty verdicts placed further pressure on the Crown Prosecution Service, with some MPs calling for it to review the way it constructs cases against people suspected of sexual offences.

Conservative former hmoe secretary David Davis said the attorney general should look again at the way police and prosecutors put together their cases. He told Channel 4 News that there was a risk that innocent people could be sent to prison as a compensation for the high profile failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

A 22-year-old man accused Evans of raping and sexually assaulting him after a dinner party at the Ribble Valley MP’s home in Lancashire in March last year. But Evans argued that the sex was consensual.

Peter Wright QC, defending Evans, suggested the complainant gave a false account because he regretted having sex with a man more than twice his age.

In 2003, Evans was said to have indecently assaulted two men in their 20s when he approached them in public places while drunk and put his hand down their trousers; one in a Soho bar and the other at a hotel bar during the 2003 Tory party conference in Blackpool.

The jury heard in his defence that these were examples of “drunken over-familiarity” rather than the ingredients of a criminal offence and Evans had no recollection of either event.

Another complainant said he was sexually assaulted by Evans while sleeping on the sofa at the MP’s Lancashire home in July 2009.

Evans admitted he had made a pass and apologised to the young man after he was hauled into the Conservative whips’ office, the court heard, but denied he had put his hand in the complainant’s boxer shorts.

The jury was told the allegation “gathered a momentum of its own” after the man mentioned the incident to another MP last year, which in turn “propelled” him into a meeting with Speaker John Bercow.

He was accused of embellishing his story when it became a police matter but two of his close friends bolstered his allegation by coming forward to say they too had been sexually assaulted by the MP.