A MAN who spent more than three years in jail for a sex attack had his conviction quashed yesterday after fresh evidence suggested that his alleged victim was a liar.

Warren Blackwell, 36, of Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire, was convicted in October 1999 of indecent assault aftee the woman claimed that she was attacked in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1999.

Mr Blackwell was jailed for three years, but in March 2002 the Court of Appeal refused him permission to appeal and increased his sentence to five years after an application by the Attorney-General.

In June 2004 the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, asked Northamptonshire Police to assist in reviewing the case.

In the High Court yesterday three judges declared Mr Blackwell’s conviction unsafe in the light of new evidence that the complainant had made “strikingly similar allegations” about other sex attacks, had an ability to lie and a possible propensity to self-harm.

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