Arsenal player cleared of rape

Arsenal goalkeeper Graham Stack leaves Bromley magistrates court in November 2004. Stack has been cleared of raping a 22-year-old girl at his home by a jury at Croydon Crown Court.

Arsenal goalkeeper Graham Stack has been cleared of raping a 22-year-old girl at his home by a jury at Croydon Crown Court.

The 24-year-old, currently on loan to Championship side Reading, had been accused of attacking the girl at his flat in Beckenham, south-east London, in September 2004.

Stack was cleared of one count of rape and another of sexual assault.

His friend, Allan Smillie, 24, was cleared of two counts of sexual assault.

The woman, from north London, went back to Stack's flat after meeting the player and his friend at a nightclub.

She claimed he had forced himself on her after she lay down in one of the bedrooms because she had been sick.

But the Republic of Ireland Under-21 international, who was on loan to Millwall at the time, maintained she had consented to sex with him.