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Frenchman CLEARED of trying to rape 'naked woman'

Jean Aubree outside Oxford Crown Court and, inset, Kiss Bar in Park End Street <i>(Image: Oxford Mail)</i>
Jean Aubree outside Oxford Crown Court and, inset, Kiss Bar in Park End Street (Image: Oxford Mail)

A French waiter sobbed as he was cleared of trying to rape a woman he met in a nightclub.

Jurors at Oxford Crown Court were told that Jean Aubree, 32, was seen by three special constables with his shorts and underwear around his ankles – standing near a woman who was lying naked and apparently unconscious on the ground.

The Frenchman, formerly of Park End Street, Oxford, denied that he was attempting to rape the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

The jury took around a day to return its not guilty verdict on the single count of attempted rape.

During the trial, the court heard how the pair had met at Kiss Bar in Park End Street in the early hours of June 23, 2018.

Aubree was said to have drunk 10 bottles of Corona lager over the course of the evening, while the complainant had gone to the bar after visiting a couple of pubs with friends. They could be seen on the club's CCTV dancing together.

Oxford Mail: ATIK on Park End Street - nightclub.29/08/2017.Picture by Ed Nix.
Oxford Mail: ATIK on Park End Street - nightclub.29/08/2017.Picture by Ed Nix.

When the bar closed at around 3am they left together, with the Frenchman waiting for her as she visited the ladies’ toilets. He said she had asked him to wait outside for her.

CCTV footage played to the jury showed them making their way through the city centre, with Aubree later telling jurors that they were headed towards Carfax.

He claimed they had been kissing and touching each other during their walk. She had been the one to take her clothes off and ‘sat on the floor’, he told jurors.

“I didn’t think she was too drunk to be doing what she was doing,” he told the court.

He claimed: “There was not one moment when she was with me she was unconscious.”

The officers called to the scene formed the view that the woman, who was naked when they arrived, was unconscious on the floor. When she came to, she was visibly distressed.

Prosecutor Hugh Forgan told jurors earlier this week: “If [the officers are] right, she’s unconscious on their arrival, there can simply be no question, no issue of consent. The defence say no, she did know what was going on, she was able to consent to what happened and did consent.”

Oxford Mail:
Oxford Mail:

The court was told that the defendant, who was assisted during the trial by a French interpreter, was brought up in Brittany in northern France.

He came to the UK in 2017 to improve his English and worked as a waiter in an Oxford restaurant. At the time of the alleged offence he was living in a hostel in Park End Street, staying in a room with ‘five or six other men’.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward