Police constable is cleared of raping student
APOLICE officer accused of raping a young student while on duty has been cleared.
The officer has been suspended for two and half years since the allegations were first made.
Greater Manchester Police officer James Andrew Darnton, known as Andy, had been on trial since Monday denying a charge of rape.
But the jury at Liverpool Crown Court found him not guilty on the judge’s directions after the prosecution decided to offer no further evidence following the completion of the complainant’s evidence.
Darnton, aged 53 and born on October 24, 1970, was discharged from the dock.
He was working as a Temporary Detective Inspector within the Public Protection Governance Unit of GMP at the time the allegation was
reported in October 2021, and has been suspended from duty since.
It had been alleged that while working as a constable he first met the complainant with a colleague after she asked the police for help when her former boyfriend threatened to
put scantily clad photos of her on the internet. He returned a second time to her Davyhulme home, this time alone, in the summer of 2009 and the woman, then aged 20, claimed he followed her into her utility room and, after kissing her, raped her over the washing machine worktop.
Owen Edwards, KC, prosecuting, had told the court that when interviewed Darnton he said that he had no real recollection because of the passage of time.
He accepts that from records he visited her on two occasions. “He accepts that it would be profoundly wrong to have sexual intercourse with a young woman while investigating her complaint,” the prosecutor said. “He denies any such sexual contact.”