Old Bailey
The Old Bailey, LondonNine men arrested in March and accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl have been acquitted at the Old Bailey in London. The acquittal was as a result of new evidence gleaned from the girl's Twitter account.
Desmond Agyei, 23, Edward Kofi Edunya, 23, Perry Murray, 24, David Sarpong, 23, Adedeji Atitebi, 21, Austin Odisi, 24, Justin Maynard, 23, Olanrewaju Sonde, 24 and Thamsanqa Sibanda, 30 - had originally been charged with 28 offences, including several rapes.
But prosecutor Samantha Cohen told the judge there would be no evidence presented against them, after an old Twitter account used by the complainant - a then-14-year-old girl - had been examined at "the highest level" of the Crown Prosecution Service and the police.
The men, from London, remained silent as Judge John Bevan recorded not guilty verdicts.
The prosecutor told the court there was "no longer a realistic prospect of conviction" after evidence "came to light through a side-wind" when they discovered that the complainant had an old Twitter account which she had not disclosed.
She said: "The content of the archive tweets - which were not publicly available - is such as to render this a case where there is no realistic prospect of conviction."