A MAN accused of rape who sent text messages apologising to the young woman he had sex with has walked free from court.

Gary Forbes was yesterday found not guilty on the directions of the trial judge at the end of the case for the prosecution.

Judge Peter Fox made the ruling after the woman told the jury she had consensual sex with Mr Forbes a week earlier.

The woman - aged 20 at the time - also told the jury she could not say whether she had consented on the second occasion.

She said she had been asleep and woke to find Mr Forbes having sex with her in her bed in the early hours of August 4, last year.

But the woman admitted she talked in her sleep, and may have agreed when 21-year-old Mr Forbes asked her if she wanted to do it again.

The jury heard that Mr Forbes sent a series of text messages and a letter to the woman telling her that his guilt over what he had done was "slowly eating me alive".

The jury at Teesside Crown Court heard earlier that the woman had been out drinking with a group of about 30 friends in Hartlepool town centre on the Thursday evening.

The woman said she was drunk and fell asleep fully-clothed on top of her bed after removing her trainers, while Mr Forbes stood nearby.

She said she woke some time later under the duvet and Mr Forbes was having sex with her.

The jury was told that the flurry of text messages from Mr Forbes started within minutes of the woman ordering him to leave.

Mr Forbes, of Eider Close, Hartlepool, was arrested the next day and told police he thought she wanted to have sex with him, even though he did not know if she was awake.