The father of a teenage chess prodigy who fell to her death from an eight-floor hotel window was cleared today of repeatedly raping her when she was a child.
Ian Gilbert, 49, denied his daughter Jessie's claims of rape saying that he thought she had made them up to get revenge after they fell out over a laptop computer.
Jessie, 19, died in July this year, when she fell from a window of a hotel in the Czech Republic during an international chess tournament in Prague. Just before she died she told police that her father had raped her between the ages of eight and 13.
Mr Gilbert, a director at the Royal Bank of Scotland, was cleared of all charges of rape on his daughter. The jury at Guildford Crown Court also cleared him of two counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault on other people, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
His solicitor, Colin Reynolds, said in a statement on his behalf: "Ian Gilbert fully cooperated with the police inquiry and has strenuously denied these allegations throughout and robustly defended this indictment.
"He is grateful to the jury for their obvious careful consideration of all the evidence and for returning appropriate verdicts which reflect the truth. He would ask you to respect his privacy as he now seeks to restore stability in his personal and professional life."
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