A MOTHER has spoken for the first time this week of her relief that her son has been cleared of a rape conviction after he served 14 months of an eight-year sentence behind bars. Terry Bishop was found not guilty in a retrial last month. But his time inside’ for as crime he’s now been cleared of had crucified’ him, his mother says

Julia Gregory

A MOTHER has spoken for the first time this week of her relief that her son has been cleared of a rape conviction after he served 14 months of an eight-year sentence behind bars.

Terry Bishop, a father-of-three from Bethnal Green in East London, was found not guilty by a jury in a retrial last month.

But his time 'inside' for as crime he's now been cleared of had 'crucified' him, his 59-year-old mother Rita told the East London Advertiser.

"It absolutely crucified him," she said

"He was in a Category A prison and was literally terrified for his life."

The 37-year-old tiler, who was living at Raynham House in Harpley Square, Bethnal Green, when he was arrested, was serving his sentence in Milton Keynes prison for what Judge Michael Baker described as "a gunpoint rape of a woman in her own home."

He maintained the woman had consented to sex after he had gone to her home at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire on June 27, 2006, and denied ever having a firearm with him.

But he returned to St Alban's Crown court last month for his retrial in which a jury cleared him after two weeks. He did not face the assault charge in his retrial.

Terry of was worried that other prisoners would find out he was inside for rape and make life difficult or even attack him.

The stress of the case affected the family badly.

His mum, speaking at her home in Hoxton, East London, said: "It made me completely ill.

"Your son's in jail and you know it's not true. I was going crazy."

But the family had support from their friends.

"We have got sheets and sheets of letters that people wrote to us," she added. "They said they knew he did not do this."

The Appeal Court quoshed Terry's conviction on December 17 and ordered a retrial.

His firm of lawyers said his defence at the retrial had been the same as the first trial, when he told the jury that sex was with the woman's consent.

The reason she made the allegation was that after sex she discovered a photo of a girlfriend in his wallet with a love letter, the jury was told.

She attacked him and he says he defended himself, but admitted assaulting her.

.