Cleared of sex attack (From Penarth Times)

Cleared of sex attack

SULLY policeman Mark Hobrough has been cleared of a sex attack on a female colleague.

Sergeant Mark Hobrough, the husband of Survivor winner Charlotte, was accused of indecent assault on an off-duty WPc by groping her in a nightclub.

But a jury of seven men and five women took just ten minutes to clear him of the attack.

Hobrough, who works at Barry Station, was accused of groping the pretty WPc in the crowded Cardiff nightspot, Life.

He denied the attack - and said he was in a "blissful" marriage to his millionairess wife who won the desert island reality show.

He told Cardiff Crown Court: "If I had put my hand on a lady's breast I would have been aware of it. It would have stopped me in my tracks and I would have apologised.

Tom Crowther, defending, earlier told the jury that their verdict compared their decision to the vote which won Charlotte £1m on the TV game show.

He told the jury: "A vote 18 months ago changed Mark Hobrough's life in a very significant way.

Many more people were involved and it won his wife a sum of money.

"But you 12 hold his life very much in the palms of your hands."

Charlotte - dubbed "the Harlot" after a fling on the TV survival island - pledged to support husband Mark.

After the case, Mark said: "I'm delighted that my innocence has been established.

I'm looking forward to returning to work and resuming my normal life."

Chief Inspector Huw Gosling, of South Wales police, said: "Mark will be welcome back in work, at the same rank as he was before."