A partially deaf man from Sidmouth has been cleared of carrying out a humiliating sexual assault, after telling a jury that the woman consented.

Anthony James, 43, of High Meadow, was arrested after the woman from East Devon went to hospital because of pain caused by the alleged assault in October last year.

She had invited James to spend the night at her home and they had started having consensual sex before she alleged he assaulted her and ignored her pleas to stop.

James told Exeter Crown Court that he is deaf and uses hearing aids but that he was sure the woman was not only consenting but enjoying the encounter.

He said her body language and the sounds she was making made him believe that she was happy with what he was doing and wanted him to continue.

James, aged 43, of High Meadow, Sidmouth, denied and was acquitted of two counts of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault.

He was discharged by Judge David Evans but then remanded in custody because he has admitted unrelated offences of breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Mr Adrian Chaplin, prosecuting, said the CPS are currently assessing whether to charge him with downloading indecent images of children which were allegedly found on his phone.

During the trial he said James and the woman were friends but had not slept together before she invited him to her home, where they shared a bottle of rum and a gram of cocaine.

He said they went to bed and started to have consensual sex but James had been unable to do so and had then used his fingers, leaving her in such pain the next day that she went to Casualty in Exeter, where staff advised her to call the police.

James said everything that happened was consensual and that he heard her making ‘pleasurable moans’ and ‘sexual groaning noises’.

Judge Evans adjourned the sentence on the other case until January.