Judge’s widow cleared of sex assaults

THE WIDOW of a Court of Appeal judge has been cleared of all charges after a man accused her of sexually abusing him when he was a young boy in the 1980s.

Lady Lavinia Nourse was married to Sir Martin Nourse who died in 2017, aged 85.

The 77-year-old, of Newmarket in Suffolk, described the allegations, which relate to a single male complainant, as a “complete fantasy”.

Jurors at Peterborough’s Nightingale court took less than five hours of deliberation to find her not guilty of all 17 charges.

She was cleared of five counts of indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 12, and was also found not guilty of 12 counts of indecency with a child.

The defendant wiped away tears as the verdicts were returned. Speaking after the trial, she said that her life had been a “living hell”.