Four footballers cleared of hotel room sex attack

Four footballers were cleared yesterday of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman in a hotel room.

Jurors at the Old Bailey also found them not guilty of voyeurism at a retrial.

Brighton and Hove Albion players Anton Rodgers, 20, Lewis Dunk, 21, and George Barker, 21, and former team-mate Steve Cook, 22, who now plays for Bournemouth, had maintained their innocence.

They were given bail throughout the trial and their families, including Rodgers’ father — Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers — watched the proceedings.

The prosecution said the players were celebrating victory in a local cup in Jul 2011, when they came across the drunken woman at a club.

She woke up at the Jury’s Inn hotel to find her strapless dress pulled down and said she saw explicit pictures on Rodgers’ mobile phone.

Richard Barton, prosecuting, said these were taken as a “permanent record of their conquest”.

But despite forensic tests on all the players’ phones, only one photograph was found on Barker’s phone.

Anton and Brendan Rodgers left court without commenting, but solicitor Mark Haslam said they were delighted with the verdict.