A man has been cleared of raping a friend who accompanied him to his flat after her birthday night out and who, almost three years later, decided to report the alleged incident to the police.

The woman went out for birthday celebrations with a group of friends a week before Christmas 2016 and ended up so tipsy that a security officer at the club had warned that she would soon have to be led out.

What followed was a series of blurred recollections, including a ride in a taxi and waking up the next morning to find herself naked in the accused’s bed.

He had asked her to get dressed and make her way home before his brother turned up with his girlfriend.

The woman walked home from San Gwann to Msida, meeting the accused again later that day at a pizzeria.

Following that episode, the two had exchanged messages wherein the accused had described it as “the best night of this life,” while she texted back, saying that it had been “fun.”

Yet as time went by, the woman told the court that she could not come to terms with the fact that the man she had known since her early teens, had taken advantage of her when she was in no state to consent.

While working on a school project about abortion, she met a female lawyer and  confided in her about her “story.”

On April 17, 2019, the woman, accompanied by the lawyer, went to the Msida police station where she filed a verbal report claiming that she had been raped by the accused.

Following one arrest warrant that expired and a second warrant issued in June, the man was finally summoned to the police station where he was faced with the rape allegations.

He was subsequently arraigned, protesting his innocence and was granted bail.

When testifying via videoconference, the alleged victim admitted that unlike the accused, that night in his bedroom had not been her first sexual experience.

She had texted him the following day asking, “Aw! Was it really your first time? Because it’s overwhelming. Hah, hah, hah, hah,” prompting the embarrassed youth to plead with her to keep that fact to herself.

Under cross-examination, the woman denied that she had come up with the rape story because she was jealous of the accused’s girlfriend who, unlike herself, had been introduced as such to his family.

The accused in his testimony recalled how he and his flatmate had accompanied the woman to their home after her party night out.

She had allegedly stripped to her underwear, popped into his bed, kissed him and engaged in foreplay, before insisting on having sex, even after he had confessed that it was his first time.

“Yes, don’t worry. I want to have fun on my birthday too,” she had allegedly replied.

The accused insisted that she had led him on all the way and that is why he had afterwards been “hurt by it all.”

His lawyer, Giannella de Marco argued that there was “nothing worse than a female scorned,” this being “a classic case” of a woman who wanted more than mere friendship.

De Marco also remarked that the alleged victim abused laws tailored to protect women to inflict misery on others.

When delivering judgment, Magistrate Joseph Mifsud said it was “greatly irresponsible” for the prosecution to accuse someone of such a serious crime, that allegedly happened almost three years before, without putting together all evidence possible.

Investigations had been sparked by a mere verbal report, three years after the alleged incident, observed the court.

Given that lapse of time, no magisterial inquiry had been undertaken.

Moreover, the chats between the alleged rapist and his victim had not been analyzed by the cybercrime unit.

On the basis of the two main testimonies, the court was not convinced that the sex had taken place against the woman’s will, thus pronouncing an acquittal.

The court ordered a ban on all names.

Lawyers Giannella de Marco and Stephen Tonna Lowell were defence counsel.