A MAN has been cleared of raping a woman in a Merseyside cemetery.

But Vadims Holostovs was jailed for four years after jurors found him guilty of wounding the 24-year-old woman with intent.

Latvian Holostovs was accused of raping and sexually assaulting the woman after meeting her in a Southport club.

But the Liverpool Crown Court jury of eight women and four men took about 3½ hours to clear him of both sexual offences.

The married father-of-two always admitted having sex with the woman in the cemetery on Duke Street in Southport, but insisted it had been consensual.

There had been drama in the courtroom when the foreman of the jury initially responded “guilty” when he was asked for his verdict to the charge of rape.

He was quickly corrected by other members of the panel.

But jurors did find Holostovs guilty of a third of charge of assaulting the woman with intent in the early hours of November 20, last year.

She was found about two hours after they left Bakers Bar together by two women driving to work wandering disorientated and injured.

They took her to hospital.

Jailing Holostovs for four years for the attack, Judge David Aubrey, QC, said: “She [the victim] was described as a lively, outgoing, bubbly person.

“When she was seen by the two ladies in the early hours, 7am, on November 20, she was nothing but.