Bishop's Stortford man Wayne Rogers cleared of serious sexual assault on another man while dressed as a woman

A Bishop's Stortford man accused of dressing as a woman and seriously sexually assaulting another man has been cleared.

Wayne Rogers, 46, of Plaw Hatch Close, faced three trials and was found not guilty at the end of each one. The verdicts could not be made public until all the hearings had been concluded.

At St Albans Crown Court, Rogers was accused of performing oral sex on a drunken man who had been at a work Christmas party.

Rogers said that he had gone out dressed as a woman on the evening of Friday December 20, 2019. He had sexual activity with another man in Harlow before encountering the complainant in Bishop's Stortford in the early hours of the Saturday.

He told Herts police that the man, who has a female partner, had pulled at his wig and moved it before saying: "This feels wrong."

Bald-headed Rogers, who wore masculine clothing in the dock, had denied sexual assault and assault by penetration. He was cleared by a jury on May 20.

At the end of the second trial on June 7, he was cleared of causing a man, who believed Rogers was a woman, to engage in sexual activity without consent on at least two occasions between May 12, 2018, and April 14, 2020.

Rogers said that he met the man every couple of weeks on a Friday or Saturday in a field or a car park. On his social media profile, he said he was a cross-dresser.

The 45-year-old complainant, who said he was heterosexual, claimed he believed he was meeting up with a woman called Jade for "a bit of friends with benefits".

The third trial involved allegations of coercive control in an intimate or family relationship involving a third man who had lived with Rogers. It was said to have taken place between January and July 2016. The third jury acquitted him of the charge on June 17.