Asylum pair are cleared over rape

A judge criticised the justice system today after two asylum seekers who went on the run while awaiting trial for rape walked free from court.

The jury who acquitted Russians Igor Grygorenko, 29, and Michael Roslan, 25, could be told nothing about their bid to flee Britain last month. Judge David Martineau said the public might think it "common sense" for their flight to have been part of the prosecution evidence.

Grygorenko and Roslan were alleged to have raped a Russian woman after inviting her to a poetry reading. Earlier this year at Blackfriars Crown Court a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case.

Today the second jury cleared Grygorenko and Roslan of raping the 25-year-old woman - and then learned how they tried to get a ferry to Ireland days before their retrial was due to begin.

One juror gasped as Judge Martineau told the panel of the pair's bid to evade justice. They were stopped by immigration officials at Bootle, Merseyside, where checks revealed the rape allegation.

Two friends of Grygorenko and Roslan put up securities for £4,000 and lost their money after the two men failed to turn up for a directions hearing the week before the retrial.

Judge Martineau said today: "Some people may think the justice system in this country is overly fair, that not a whisper of their disappearance to Bootle was mentioned in this trial at all.

"A lot of people might say common sense might suggest it should have been."

The woman had claimed she was stripped and forced to have sex in turn by the defendants before a third man, who has not been caught, joined in. She said she was gang raped at knife-point on 12 July last year after meeting Roslan at Queensway Tube station in west London.

The woman claimed the trio struck after she was plied with cocktails and lured to a "poetry reading" evening at Linden Gardens in Notting Hill. A police surgeon found the woman covered in bruises consistent with being held down while rape was taking place.

But Roslan claimed the woman made up the story to improve her chances of being allowed to remain in the UK. Grygorenko admitted being present at the flat but he said nothing untoward happened.

Roslan, of East Ham, and Grygorenko of Maida Vale, were both cleared of two counts of rape. Grygorenko has "indefinite leave to remain" in the country, while Roslan's application for political asylum is still bring processed.