The Grammy-nominated British rapper Slowthai, whose actual title is Tyron Frampton, has been discovered not responsible of raping two ladies at a home get together after the musician’s gig on the Bullingdon, in Oxford, in September 2021.
Frampton, 29, burst into tears at Oxford crown court docket on Monday because the jurors cleared him and his co-accused, Alex Blake-Walker, 27, of three joint counts of rape, after 10 hours of deliberation. Blake-Walker was additionally discovered not responsible of 1 depend of sexual assault.
Choose Pringle instructed the court docket the case had “raised lots of excessive emotions”.
Frampton’s spouse, the pop singer Anne-Marie, sighed because the verdicts had been learn out. Frampton declined to touch upon the verdicts because the pair left the court docket.
Frampton and Blake-Walker had beforehand denied all the costs, and stated the 2 ladies consented to all sexual exercise.
In closing arguments final week, the prosecutor Heather Stangoe instructed the jury they need to not attempt to be “Wagatha Christies” and search to analyze the case themselves, however to determine primarily based on the proof that they had heard. “This isn’t CSI, this isn’t an American drama – this can be a case about actual folks and issues that occurred in actual life.”
Defending Frampton, Patrick Gibbs KC had stated there have been a dozen “issues” with the prosecution’s case, and defended his shopper as not being “everyone’s stereotype of a rapper”, however a “considerate”, “modest” man who “throws himself, typically recklessly, into life”.
He instructed the jury that even when Frampton was acquitted, “he’ll be cancelled for the remainder of time”.
Defending Blake-Walker, Sheryl Nwosu stated in her closing remarks that the proof for the prosecution “doesn’t match with Mr Blake-Walker and his behaviour on the night time” and that he believed the plaintiff was “totally consenting”.
Choose Pringle stated on the time the case was a “query of consent” and that there was “no stereotype for a perpetrator or sufferer of rape”.
Stangoe stated Frampton and Blake-Walker had met a gaggle of ladies earlier than the present and given them VIP tickets, and that the ladies later met him on the tour bus. After Frampton and Blake-Walker went to one of many ladies’s homes, Stangoe stated Frampton made two guidelines: “No telephones and no boys.”
It was alleged that Blake-Walker raped the primary lady on the encouragement of Frampton, who was accused of raping the second lady twice on the encouragement of Blake-Walker. Blake-Walker was additionally accused of sexually assaulting the second lady.
Stangoe stated the ladies had been “remoted from their mates”, then raped and sexually assaulted on the roof whereas the 2 males joked, gave one another high-fives, “mentioned ‘tag groups’ and contemplated swapping the women”. She stated that when the ladies’s mates realised what was taking place and intervened, Frampton ran away.
Frampton instructed the court docket sexual exercise had taken place between him and the second lady however stated she had given consent. He stated that he and Blake-Walker had “fist-bumped” however denied that it was a gesture of encouragement.
After the 2 ladies reported the incident to the police that night time, Frampton and Blake-Walker had been arrested and interviewed. The allegations got here to gentle in Might 2023 when Frampton appeared in Oxfordshire magistrates court docket through video hyperlink on two fees of rape.
The musician, whose second album, Tyron, reached No 1 in 2021, was later faraway from the lineups of Glastonbury and the Studying and Leeds festivals.