Former city player is cleared of rape
A JURY took half-an-hour to clear a former Manchester City player of raping a young woman after a night out.
It was alleged by prosecutors that George Glendon, 22, sexually attacked the ‘extremely drunk’ 19-year-old in a house near the seaside resort of Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire.
But the jury cleared him of any wrongdoing after his defence team argued the alleged victim gave ‘unreliable’ evidence.
They added that the evidence against the young footballer, from Stockport, was ‘a million miles away’ from proving him guilty.
Mr Glendon, from Heald Green, Cheadle, denied raping the woman in early 2016.
The jury of nine women and three men took just over 30 minutes to clear him of the charge at Grimsby Crown Court.
In his evidence, Mr Glendon said the woman had been ‘quite drunk’ but denied she was ‘extremely drunk’ and said their later sexual encounter had lasted ‘around five seconds.’ He also denied waiting outside the Lite House club in Cleethorpes so he could pick up the woman for sex.
He helped her because he was concerned about her safety, the jury was told. The prosecution claimed the woman was so ‘falling over drunk’ she was ‘incapable of stringing a sentence together.’
Later, she could not remember what happened to her apart from she ended up in a man’s bedroom with her dress off, it was claimed.
Mr Glendon told the court: “I went upstairs. She went upstairs. She went up before me. I get up the stairs and she is in the room where I was meant to be staying. She was in the bed. She was under the covers. I seen her dress on the floor. She had already taken it off before I got in. I didn’t help.
“She was encouraging it. She took the first move by kissing me and I was kissing her back.”
He claimed they had sex at her instigation. “I was enjoying it,” he said. “I was aroused.”
But he claimed the sex lasted only for ‘around five seconds.’
The woman could remember little of what happened. Defence barrister Judy Khan QC told the court that Mr Glendon’s arrest was ‘the start of a nightmare for him.’
She urged the jury: “You can end the nightmare for him now by finding him not guilty.”
Midfielder Glendon joined City as a youth player in 2013. He now plays for League One club Fleetwood Town.