TWO men accused of taking it in turns to rape a woman late at night at a Kent railway station have walked free from a court.

They were cleared of the accusations,after the prosecution offered no evidence at Canterbury Crown Court.

Vitalijus Kovaliovas, 24, of Keynstan Gardens, Eltham, spent six months in custody waiting for his trial but prosecutor Cairns Nelson said there no longer remained a realistic prospect of a conviction and offered no evidence against Mr Kovaliovas.

Following the allegation, made in September, police were hunting a second man and arrested Tomas Kulbis, 25, of no fixed home, in May.

He appeared alongside Mr Kovaliovas but as an indictment against him had not been signed, the proceedings in his case were discontinued.

Mr Nelson said CCTV footage of the alleged incident, at Margate railway station, contradicted the woman’s account that she had fallen asleep on a bench and woke to find one man raping her while the other held her down and they then changed places.

"As to whether anything that then occurred on the bench occurred as she would have it, the footage is so poor it is impossible to say. It seems beholden on the Crown to look for corroboration."

David Bate, QC, for Mr Kovaliovas, said DNA samples taken from the woman did not support her allegation.

Her alcohol consumption that night was higher than she had admitted to police and she spent the night at a local guest house with an acquaintance she met later that night.

"This man was in fact arrested after she claimed he had raped her but the CPS refused to prosecute him.

"It is unfortunate that it has taken six months for the full story to emerge and one can only accept the common sense that the CPS have shown in offering no evidence in this case because there was no realistic possibility of there being a safe conviction in this case.

"Justice has been done and a person wrongly charged with rape has been allowed to go free.

"His name can be published by the press," he added. "The name of the complainant can't be published. That is the way of the system at the moment."