UK: Pensioner cleared of 'false memory' farm rape claims

Story here. Excerpt:

'A pensioner has been cleared of raping a girl on a farm 40 years after a jury were told the alleged victim may have been affected by false memory syndrome.

Roger Mennell, aged 67, has never been in trouble in his life but has spent two years fighting the allegations which the woman made during psychotherapy sessions.

She alleged he had raped and sexually assaulted her while visiting her family at a farm near Tiverton in the 1970s when she was seven or eight.

She told Exeter Crown Court how Mennell had used a knife to stab, cut open and kill a farm cat as a means of terrifying her into silence. She allegedly he said he would do the same to her family if she revealed his abuse.