A CONVICTED killer who was the first to be prosecuted after the "double-jeopardy" law was abolished was this afternoon cleared of a string of sex allegations.

Billingham man William 'Billy' Dunlop was found not guilty of three charges of rape and two of sexual assault following a week-long trial at Teesside Crown Court.

Dunlop, 54, stood emotionless in the dock with his hands in his pockets as the five verdicts were announced by the jury foreman - to three rapes and two indecent assaults.

He will now be taken back to Frankland Prison, Durham, where he is serving life for the 1989 murder of pizza delivery girl Julie Hogg - which he got away with for 17 years.

Dunlop twice stood trial for the killing in 1991, but two juries could not reach verdicts, and he walked free because of the 800-year-old "double-jeopardy" rule.

In 1999, while he was serving a sentence for stabbing his ex-partner and beating her new boyfriend with a baseball bat, he confessed to a prison officer.

Dunlop knew he could not be put in the dock again for the murder, but he was prosecuted for perjury - lying at the trials - and he was locked up for six years.

Julie's tireless mother Ann Ming and The Northern Echo campaigned for the archaic law - which meant a person could not be tried twice for the to be abolished, and it finally was in April 2005.

The following year, at The Old Bailey, he admitted the gruesome murder and was jailed for life , with the judge setting a minimum time behind bars of 17 years.

Dunlop told the jury in this trial that he may never be released and admitted he was a dangerous and violent man - but insisted he was not a child abuser.

Following the verdicts, he sat down, nipped the bridge of his nose with his fingers and rubbed his eyes, before nodding as the jury left the court room.

He was alleged to have raped one girl at the Billingham Synthonia football ground in 1984 or 1985, and again at his flat when she truanted from school in 1987 or 1988.

His second accuser said she was grabbed by a drunken Dunlop who demanded a kiss shortly after his release from prison in October 1991 following his murder acquittal.