‘She didn’t push me away, strike out at me or batter me’

‘crazy drunk’ and unresponsive. He was also cleared of assaulting another woman at a house party and said afterwards the case had put him and his family through ‘15 months of absolute hell’.

De Lotbiniere’s name now joins the list of students to be cleared of rape after the very public ordeal of a trial.

During the first trial he came across as confident and articulate as he protested his innocence, insisting: ‘It was happening with her consent, she didn’t push me away, she didn’t strike out at me, she didn’t batter me off.’

Dressed smartly in a suit, he said he could ‘feel the sexual tension in the air’, and they kissed passionately before he told her: ‘I’m going to get a condom.’

When he returned to her room she was on the bed and they kissed again and ‘started undressing each other’. He said he touched her intimately and they had sex ‘but barely’.

Being only his second sexual experience, he said at one stage the woman told him: ‘You are not very good at this, let me help you.’

Moments later she added: ‘Let’s stop, why don’t we just go to sleep.’ Feeling embarrassed, he said he left the room without another word. One of his friends, fellow student Flossie Vice-Coles, 22, gave evidence to support him, saying he was kind and compassionate – an ‘old-fashioned gentleman’ who didn’t pursue girls.

She added: ‘I feel like he had values that a lot of boys at university didn’t. He was very respectful and kind.’ His accuser appeared timid and shy as she gave evidence, while insisting it had not been consensual.

She said she was surprised when he kissed her in the corridor outside her bedroom, telling him: ‘I don’t think you should do that.’ She claimed he replied: ‘We should have sex to help you get over your ex.’

She added: ‘Once he had taken off my top I froze.’ She said she tried to fight him off as he carried her to bed. Gerald Hendron, prosecuting, said: ‘She tried to push him off her, but he was physically larger and stronger than she was.

After a time he did stop and started to act as if he was extremely drunk saying “Pretend this never happened” and “tell no one”.’

So why the 14-month wait to tell police? ‘I saw a tweet from a fan and I just got angry and upset,’ the accuser said. ‘It has really got to me. I think if I had been feeling fine about it I wouldn’t have been feeling like I did.’

Other friends came to her support. In the first trial one described De Lotbiniere as having behaved in a creepy and lecherous way. Recalling an incident when they were in a nightclub, he said: ‘ Barto was getting off with this girl quite soon after we went to the club. I felt it was a more forceful way he was holding this girl so she couldn’t particularly move. I had words with Barto regarding the amount he was talking about girls and the way he was talking about them.

‘Any random girls who walked past, fairly lustful comments. It made me feel uncomfortable. I did ask him to tone it down which I have never done before.’

Another friend said De Lotbiniere’s personality would change when he was drunk and he would grab women.

Despite the rape trial hanging over him, De Lotbiniere managed to graduate with a 2:1 degree and went on to complete a masters in history at University College London. But unlike the woman, whose identity is protected by law, his name will now be associated with a drunken night out that ended in a notorious court case.

A CPS spokesman said last night: ‘ The CPS considered the cases in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors.

‘It was determined in both cases there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that it was in the public interest to prosecute. We respect the decision of the juries.’