A Colchester fencer accused of raping a woman while he was walking her home faces a wait of more than a year for a retrial after the jury in his trial was discharged.

Shane Farrow, 36, of Spruce Avenue, Colchester, had denied raping the woman in February 2020.

At Ipswich Crown Court on Thursday, the jury was discharged after failing to reach a verdict on the single charge of rape.

Farrow was told that his retrial, which is expected to last six days, will not take place until January 2024.

During his trial it was alleged Farrow raped the woman after drinking and taking drugs.

Joanne Eley, prosecuting, said that after the alleged rape the woman had called her husband and told him she’d been raped and told him to call the police.

She said she felt degraded after the alleged rape and had screamed: “What have you done?” at Farrow and told him he wasn’t going to get away with it.

Giving evidence during his trial Farrow denied forcing himself on the woman and telling her that she “wanted it”.

Asked by his barrister Tara McCarthy: “Did you ignore her when she said she didn’t want to do it?”

Farrow replied: “She didn’t say that. If she had said that I would have stopped.”

In a police interview read to the jury Farrow denied raping the woman and claimed they had consensual sex.

He told police that while he was walking the woman home she had asked him for a cuddle and had kissed him.

He said he had been shocked when she kissed him but had kissed her back.

He claimed the alleged victim had put her hand inside his shorts and had then pulled her trousers down and had fallen back pulling him on top of her.

He said the woman had not appeared to be drunk and he was “shocked and devastated “ when he was arrested by police.

He said he believed the woman, who was married, had made up the rape allegation because she was covered in mud and it was her way of “getting out of what they had done”.