A RISCA security guard, jailed after a jury found him guilty of a sex attack, will be freed after Appeal Court judges overturned his conviction yesterday.

Dennis McGarvie, of Holly Road, was put behind bars for three-and-a-half years at Cardiff Crown Court after he was convicted of sexual assault in June last year. He was cleared of rape and attempted rape.

The 63-year-old was accused of picking up a woman outside a Newport pub early last year, before taking her to a flat in Risca and sexually molesting her.

At trial, Mr McGarvie claimed he invited the woman back after finding her confused and upset outside the pub.

She agreed to have sex with him in exchange for £50, he said, although this stopped short of full sexual intercourse.

Any sexual contact between them was consensual, he told the jury.

Mr McGarvie’s case reached London’s Appeal Court as he challenged his conviction, which Lord Justice Pill accepted was “unsafe”.

The judge, sitting with Mrs Justice Macur and Mr Justice Bean, said the trial judge had been wrong to allow the prosecution to submit evidence to the jury of Mr McGarvie’s previous conviction for rape, dating back 33 years, plus an indecent assault offence committed in 1992.

He concluded that the previous offences were far in the past and there was no evidence of similar characteristics to the more recent alleged incident.

“Wedon’t consider that the earlier convictions were properly admitted (in evidence),” concluded Lord Justice Pill, quashing the conviction and directing Mr McGarvie’s release.