Snooker star cleared of rape charge

Snooker star Quinten Hann was today cleared of raping a 21-year-old student.

A jury at the Old Bailey took two-and-a-half hours to find the 25-year-old Australian not guilty.

The South African university student who had made the allegation was not in court to hear the verdict. Hann’s mother Mandy sighed with relief in the public gallery.

The student had told the court she was drunk after drinking champagne and a Sex on the Beach cocktail with Hann and his friends at a club.

She had walked to his flat and did not object to him kissing her or to sitting astride a naked Hann as they talked about his business interests.

But she said he had ignored her pleas to stop when he tried to make love to her on the floor of the lounge.

Hann, 25, had insisted throughout the nine-day trial that the woman had made a play for him and had not objected to him fondling and undressing her.

‘‘I did not try to seduce her,’’ he said. ‘‘As much as a woman can go after a man, she went after me. The whole night, she was very willing.’’

He said he stopped making love to her, about 15-20 seconds after he started, when she said she was feeling guilty about her boyfriend.

The woman had left his £2,000-a-week (€3,110) flat in the Savoy Apartments in The Strand, central London, without making any complaint to him or her friend who was in a bedroom with his pal Darren James.