A SERVING soldier has been cleared of raping two young women.

It was the second rape trial Steven Maher had faced as he was cleared of raping another woman by a jury last year.

Mr Maher, aged 33, a corporal with the Kings Hussars, was acquitted, on July 17, of two rape offences by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court, following ten and a half hours of deliberations.

Formerly of Leigh, but now of Sidbury Circular Road, Tidworth, Mr Maher disputed the allegations and denied raping either woman.

During the eight-day trial the jury of 10 women and two men heard allegations that Mr Maher launched a sex attack on a 29-year-old woman in his office at his barracks on June 23, 2013.

The woman claimed that he pulled down her garments despite her protests and raped her.

The other alleged victim claimed he had raped her on March 20, 2010 in Leigh when she was aged 18 after they met for the first time at a wedding reception.

She claimed that she told him she was gay, but in the early hours of the morning, he raped her.

He sat with his head bowed when the jury returned their verdicts.

The court heard that he had previously been cleared of raping another woman, known to both the other alleged victims, and he told the jury that he believed the younger woman had been talked into making false allegations by the woman involved in last year's trial.

Mr Maher, who is married with children, claimed that the woman who alleged he raped her at the barracks had contracted a sexually transmitted disease and so invented a fictional account to explain it to her husband.