A LITHUANIAN man was last week cleared of throttling and raping a nightclub reveller. Aurimas Pocevicius, 22, from Thornhill Gardens, Barking, was accused of stalking the 25-year-old outside an east London nightspot before forcing himself on her at an E

A LITHUANIAN man was last week cleared of throttling and raping a nightclub reveller.

Aurimas Pocevicius, 22, from Thornhill Gardens, Barking, was accused of stalking the 25-year-old outside an east London nightspot before forcing himself on her at an East Ham flat.

But a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court took just under five hours to acquit the eastern European.

Pocevicius told jurors the woman, who cannot be named, consented and they enjoyed 'normal sex' in the early hours of February 9 last year.

"She agreed," he said via a Lithuanian interpreter. "It was just normal sex.

"A person can feel what the other person wants."

Pocevicius denied carrying out a sex act on an intimate area which caused the woman injuries.

He said: "No I didn't do that," adding he merely fondled her buttocks while they made love.

Prosecutors claimed the woman went to the La Luna nightclub in Stepney before waking at 4am to find Pocevicius throttling her and screaming insults.

Pocevicius was said to have punched his victim in the face before tearing off her knickers.

But the jury cleared Pocevicius of rape, assault by penetration and assault by beating.