A woman who accused a Pembroke man of raping her was branded "neurotic" yesterday shortly before the jury found him not guilty.

In his closing speech of a five day trial defence lawyer Saul Froomkin, QC, said the complainant was not a credible witness and added: "She is a neurotic and obsessive woman."

His client was accused of violently raping the woman on January 23, 2003, though the complainant did not go to Police until April 12, 2006 — the same day her husband was arrested for assaulting the defendant.

The defendant, who cannot be named, said that he was involved in a purely sexual relationship with the woman from 2000 until the autumn of 2002 and the jury was shown sexually explicit emails exchanged between the two. He added that the complainant began stalking him and his new girlfriend after he spurned her in.

The complainant on the other hand denied ever being sexually intimate with the defendant until early January 2003 when she said they had consensual sex, which she later regretted.

She broke down when she told the jury that within moments of entering the defendant's home on January 23 he began to sexually assault her and said she suffered severe pain as a result of the alleged assault.

But yesterday Mr. Foomkin questioned her account of the alleged assault: "The most glaring inconsistency is the most dramatic thing she described — the anal penetration, the bleeding for two days.

"Eight months after the event when she signed an affidavit there is not a single mention of it. In her statement to the Police three years later there is no mention of it.

"The first time there is any mention of it is at the Preliminary Inquiry before this trial. This was not just part of the alleged assault, this was a dramatic event that she did not mention."

Earlier in the trial the jury heard that the complainant signed an affidavit in September 2003 alleging the sexual assault in order to get a domestic violence protection order.

The trial, which saw the complainant faint after intense grilling from Mr. Froomkin, lasted five days.

Yesterday the woman stormed out of the court room when the foreman delivered the verdict. Meanwhile, the defendant's family and friends cried tears of joy.

The defendant did not wish to comment on the verdict but Mr. Froomkin said it had been an unusual trial: "In my 50 years of legal experience I have not heard of a case where the defendant was never interviewed by Police."