A DEFENDANT who was cleared of rape was warned by the judge yesterday never to take advantage of a young woman again.

Carl Chambers, 36, walked free after his trial was stopped for lack of evidence at the end of the prosecution case which alleged that he raped an 18-year-old Teesside woman in her bed after a birthday celebration.

The woman, from Eston, near Middlesbrough, said she woke to find Mr Chambers naked beside her and he told her: "We had sex. I took advantage of you."

She told Teesside Crown Court that she could remember nothing between feeling sick in her bathroom and waking up also naked in bed and realising that she had had sex.

Directing the Teesside Crown Court jury to find Chambers not guilty of rape, Judge John Walford said: "What is striking and somewhat puzzling is that there is no evidence to account for why she should have this mental lapse.

"There is no evidence as to whether she was consenting or not at the crucial time because the only time you would have to consider whether she was consenting was at the time of the act of sexual intercourse.

"The fact that afterwards she was saying 'Well, I would never had had sexual intercourse with him', does not provide evidence as to what happened at that material time."

The jury found Mr Chambers of Lilac Close, Lazenby, not guilty, by the judge's direction, of raping her on August 8.

The judge told him: "I hope you can learn something from the experience that you have had in this court. Whether or not you said that you had taken advantage, I hope that in future that there is never any question of you taking advantage of a young girl again, whatever happened."