A LAWYER from Chad has been cleared of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl on a city bus.

Haroun Akai Mahamat – formerly of Evans Court, Kidlington, but now staying in Perth Road, Dundee, Scotland – denied two counts of the crime during a two-day trial at Oxford Crown Court.

The 30-year-old lawyer was studying English in Oxford at the time when the two allegations were made on August 12 this year.

He admitted kissing the complainant on the cheek after they got off the bus together, but denied intentionally touching her leg during their journey.

On Friday last week a jury found him not guilty on the first charge, alleged to have happened on the bus, and on Monday he was also cleared on count two.

In his closing speech to the jury, defence barrister Laban Leake said: “He finds himself in a place with customs that are very different from the customs that he is used to.

“He is a stranger in a strange land trying to work out what he should do.”