A jury has failed to reach a verdict on a rape charge against an apprentice eng-ineer who denied attacking a 25-year-old Worc-ester woman.

Jurors also failed to reach a verdict on a second charge of assault by penetration against Simon Walters-Melville.

But they cleared him of attempted rape at the end of a five-day trial at Worcester Crown Court .

He was granted bail by Recorder Helen Malcolm QC, who gave the prosecution two weeks to consider whether to stage a retrial.

The 26-year-old, formerly of Worcester but now of Winslow View, Winslow, Bromyard, met the woman in Shakeey’s fast-food restaurant in Worcester on March 11.

Both of them had been drinking heavily at separate celebrations earlier that night.

It was alleged the defendant mounted sex attacks on the woman at her home after they left the restaurant together in a taxi.

The prosecution claimed she was incapable of giving consent through drink and she awoke to find Walters-Melville on top of her having sex.

She told the jury she fled upstairs after waking up and barricaded herself behind a door. The defendant insisted she had started kissing him on a sofa in the lounge and had been awake throughout a consensual sex session.

The jury spent four-and-a-half hours deliberating before telling the recorder there was no point in continuing their discussions.