CHARGES have been dropped against a student who was facing trial later this year accused of controlling behaviour and assaulting a former partner.

Ex-Durham University under-graduate Imran Damji-Laurenson was alleged to have carried out the pattern of repressive behaviour during a relationship with a woman while he was a student in the city, last year.

The defendant, now 21, from Manchester, denied charges of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship, assault causing actual bodily harm and two counts of assault by beating, at a plea hearing at Durham Crown Court, in May.

A week-long trial was fixed, to start on December 10.

But, at a pre-trial review, in Mr Laurenson’s absence, prosecution counsel Joanne Kidd offered no evidence on behalf of the Crown.

Judge Christopher Prince, therefore, recorded formal not guilty verdicts on all four counts.

Following representations by defence counsel Claire Mawer, the judge agreed a defendant’s costs order for an unspecified sum, to cover Mr Laurenson’s outlay attending previous hearings.