A 49-year-old man from Kalkara, Paul Vassallo, has been cleared of raping a 17-year-old cleaner in a fertiliser tank in Attard.

A court found the teenager’s version of events so inconsistent that it could not be morally convinced that it was not consensual sex.

The incident took place on September 24, 2007, when Mr Vassallo picked the teenager up from her house after asking her to clean a fertiliser tank against payment. She had previously gone with her boyfriend to the same field and picked grapes for him.

At the time of the incident, Mr Vassallo was a nursing aid at Mount Carmel Hospital where the teenager worked as a cleaner.

In her judgement, Magistrate Audrey Demicoli said the inconsistencies in the alleged victim's version of events made it very difficult for the court to believe what had happened. Mr Vassallo, she noted, had been consistent in his version from the outset.

In 2012, Mr Vassallo had been found guilty of the charge and jailed for four years but the judgment was annulled on appeal due to procedural errors and the matter was sent back to the Magistrates' Court to restart the compilation of evidence.

Police Inspectors Ramon Mercieca and Raymond Aquilina prosecuted while lawyers Giannella de Marco and Stephen Tonna Lowell.