As I said from the beginning, I can only base my opinion on the little info the articles provide, so of course I might be wrong, just like you. But there is this thing called the benefit of the doubt. If this case is so blatantly obvious to you and you are 100% convinced that the girl said the truth and the truth only, then good for you. I have my doubts, which I'm entitled to, good for me. I did admit that from the beginning so you knew that, thus there was really no point in wasting your time quoting me only to tell us that the jury consisted of people like me. And , unless you also post the whole set of evidence and the verdict, how do you expect me to happily side with the jury or realize it's an odd decision? Odd compared to what? It's odd only if the girl said the truth, which I'm not convinced of, and so I'm not gonna send someone to jail. Let's not even mention that you kind of imply that the man also committed the crime of bribing as well as the jury/judge accepting the bribe, of which you again have no evidence , so would you go as far as sending the judge and the jury to jail for that crime?
Anyway, if you know exactly how much weight you should put on my arguments here, then really, just ignore me, I'm just stupid I guess, really no need for a site leader to bother with idiots like me, right? You have your opinion on this case, I have mine, I actually understand where you and OP are coming from, but legally I don't think it was an odd decision simply based on the little we know from this article (but as I also admitted I'm not an expert on rape trials in England so may the brits on the site correct me if I'm wrong).
Anyway rape cases are not something you can decide by logic, just saying. We've got two statements:
A: The girl was sleeping on the couch when she woke up to the man trying to penetrate her.
B: The man tripped and the girl tried to pull him over onto herself.
These are logically equal statements, that's why you need physical evidence (and semen alone is not conclusive in my humble opinion, especially that the man gave his reasons as to how that semen got there. Of course it's an easier explanation that he tried to rape her, but again, you can't just sentence someone because that's more convenient for you to imagine. That's not how it works, and I suggest you watch the movie 12 angry men [in case you haven't watched it yet]).
Yeah if I'm gonna get an infraction for trolling if I defend my case, I might feel like complaining about it, especially that the argument was already ditched, and as for now, you just simply disagree without giving any counter-arguments to my points, you just simply think that the man lied and bribed the court. Which is fine, again, you can believe what you want, but no need to criticize me for pointing out that you can't sentence someone just because of what you believe to be true. If it's not proven beyond a doubt, you got to let it go. And now if you'd say that you have no doubt at all, then again, let me see the corroborating evidence. If there is none, then there is nothing more to debate about, think that the man is a rapist, and I'll keep my doubts.