which finally ended yesterday after dragging on for three years.

Magistrate Edward King said the 19-year-old was recharged with the same offence despite a Court of Appeal ruling that he should be acquitted of the charge.

The man, who cannot be named, walked free from Magistrates' Court yesterday after Mr. King ruled there was no case for him to answer on the charge that he offended and alarmed a girl by unlawfully and illegally intruding on her privacy in a house in Pembroke in March, 1997.

The man had originally been charged with that offence and unlawfully intruding on the privacy of another girl in the same house on the same day.

But in July, 1997, Mr. King dismissed both charges on the grounds that there was no case to answer.

However a year later, Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux upheld an appeal against one of the charges, resulting in a retrial.

Yesterday, Mr. King said the case "went to sleep'' until July, 1999, when it was reactivated and the man was charged on the same two counts as the evidence laid in March, 1997.

And a Court insider blamed the Police prosecutions department for charging the man on the same evidence as had been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

The charge was amended again, and in March this year the man pleaded not guilty to offending and alarming the girl by intruding.

Yesterday, Mr. King said there was no case to answer and allowed the man, who had been on bail, to walk free.

He said the man had stated to Police that he had been invited into the girls' house by his brother. When he was asked to leave he was trespassing, and could have been charged with that offence.

But Mr. King said that under the Criminal Code, he had not offended or insulted the girl merely by being in the house.