Telford man cleared of rape and assault charges

Roberto Roa Vallejo, aged 33, had denied the allegations which were said to have happened more than three years ago.

At Shrewsbury Crown Court the jury cleared Mr Vallejo of two charges of rape and an offence of sexual assault.

The four-day hearing was a retrial after a previous jury had been unable to reach verdicts in the case.

However, at court Mr Vallejo, a native Spaniard, of Claremont Mews, Wellington, was made subject to a 12-month restraining order not to have any contact with the woman.

Judge Jim Tindal said that having listened to both trials he believed there was a “significant risk” of another encounter.

He said the order was necessary to protect the woman and because he did not trust Vallejo not to make contact with her as the case had arisen from a previous chance meeting.

The court had heard that the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and Mr Vallejo, had had a brief relationship, but they later met by chance on March 29, 2014, at a Shrewsbury night club.

Judge Tindal said that, on his findings of fact, he was satisfied that Mr Vallejo saw a chance, and took that chance, when he saw the woman at the night club.

“You encouraged and engineered a situation so that she came back to your home. This led, as the jury’s verdicts reflect, to consensual sex,” he said.

Judge Tindal told Mr Vallejo that he did not accept the defendant’s version that the woman was the driving force.

“It was what you intended and the person interested in having sex was you and for you to say it was not, I find incredible,” he said.

He said that Vallejo had persuaded her to consent by his persistence which was not unlawful.

During the trial the court heard the woman had lost touch with friends on the night out and was offered the opportunity to stay at Vallejo’s one-bedroom flat.

They were given a lift back to Telford by a friend of Vallejo and she believed she would sleep on his sofa.

On arrival she found someone else was asleep on the sofa and ended up having to share Vallejo’s bed where it she had claimed she was raped.

The woman said she had made it clear she didn’t have any romantic feelings for Vallejo and alleged, that despite repeatedly telling him no, Vallejo had continued to have sex with her.

Vallejo, who gave evidence through an interpreter, told the court the woman, who had been drinking, had gone straight into the bedroom and took of her coat, shoes and tights and got into the bed.

He told the jury there was immediate hugging and kissing and the woman never said they should not have sex.

He denied he prevented her from getting out of the bed by trapping her against the wall and said the door was open and she could have left.