Trainer is cleared in Accrington rape case

9:20am Friday 16th May 2008

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A PERSONAL trainer has been cleared of raping a 'drunken' young woman, after a four-day trial.

Shaun Coulson, 38, was found not guilty by a jury at Burnley Crown Court yesterday. He had denied the allegation.

The defendant, of Jacob Street, Accrington, was discharged from the dock by Judge Andrew Woolman.

The jury had heard claims Coulson had sexually attacked the alleged victim at a house in Accrington after they had met at a pub in the town.

The young woman had been out with her family for a celebratory meal and was described as being 'very inebriated.' Her fiancé told the court how she had burst into tears when she had arrived home in the early hours and had told him she had been raped.

Coulson told the jury the sex had been consensual and said the woman had been crying because they had talked about telling her partner.

A taxi driver who picked the alleged victim up from the house in Accrington at about 4.15am, had said a lone female got into his cab, was crying uncontrollably and was dishevelled.

In a statement, he said: "She did not stop crying during the course of the five-minute journey."

The boyfriend of the woman, who cannot be named to protect her identity, told the hearing his girlfriend was 'incredibly upset,' and was shaking.

She told him: "I have just been raped."