Ex-Sandgrounders player cleared of raping woman
Footballer and friend found not guilty of charges by jury
AFORMER Southport football player was cleared of raping a woman after a night out.
John Cofie, who also played for Manchester United, and his friend Nathan Stuart were found not guilty on all counts by the jury.
Mr Cofie played for the Old Trafford club from the age of 14 until he was 21, before playing abroad until the age of 26.
Minshull Street Crown Court heard the woman went out with a friend in Altrincham, Trafford, and met Mr Cofie and Mr Stuart, both now 31, on the evening of April 12, 2019.
They visited several bars before the woman’s friend went home.
The woman recalled having a cigarette outside one bar, but told jurors “that was the last of what she really recalled” from the evening.
Prosecutor Vanessa Thomson said: “She drank alcohol and as the night progressed, she was later to tell the police that memories of the evening disappeared.
“She recalled having a cigarette with her friend outside one pub and the next memory was being picked up the following morning by her father from Nathan Stuart’s home.
“Her disappearance that night caused consternation amongst her friends and family.
“When she was picked up by her father, she felt incredibly disorientated, she felt ill and she did not know what had happened over the course of the night before.
“She even went to hospital because she felt so poorly and had no answers as to why.”
The jury was told she couldn’t recall anything and knew that “she had not and was not able to have provided consent to sexual activity”.
Ms Thomson said: “She did not have the capacity to consent because of her intoxicated state and she queried whether in fact she had been spiked.”
Mr Cofie, from Sale, denied three counts of rape; Mr Stuart, from Northwich, denied two counts. Jurors took less than an hour to find them both not guilty of all offences.
Both men said they’d had consensual sex with the woman.
Mr Stuart said the woman had been “kissing and touching him” that evening and he had offered to take her home, but she had insisted on staying out with him and Mr Cofie.
He told jurors the three of them had gone back to his house, the woman had begun kissing Mr Cofie and invited him to join them.
Both he and Mr Cofie then had sex with her, he said. He denied spiking her.
Mr Cofie said the woman and Mr Stuart had been lying on a mattress and she had called him over to join them.
He told the jury the woman began kissing him after Mr Stuart left the room and he was “concerned” that she didn’t remember having sex, saying it “doesn’t look good”.
Mr Cofie, of Forest Drive, Sale, and Mr Stuart, of Pack Horse Close, Northwich, were both acquitted of all counts of rape and discharged from the dock.
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