{"id":685307,"date":"2026-07-11T02:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T02:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685307\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T02:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T02:27:11","slug":"top-boy-star-micheal-ward-found-not-guilty-of-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685307\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Top Boy’ Star Micheal Ward Found Not Guilty of Rape"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMicheal Ward<\/a>, the BAFTA-winning British star of \u201cTop Boy\u201d and \u201cEddington,\u201d has been found not guilty of rape and sexual assault in a London court.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 28-year-old was accused of raping a woman in the back of a car after meeting her outside a New Year\u2019s party in London in January 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tWard had denied two counts of rape, two counts of assault by penetration and one count of sexual assault. On Friday, the jury unanimously found him not guilty of all charges.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Sky News, Ward\u2019s solicitor Humzah Ilyas spoke outside the court and described how the case had had a \u201cprofound impact\u201d on the actor, who won a BAFTA Rising Star award in 2020.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMicheal Ward is enormously grateful to the members of the jury for taking the time to examine the evidence in this case with such care. As he maintained throughout this case, this was a consensual sexual encounter. The jury agreed and cleared him of all wrongdoing,\u201d Ilyas said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt has been three and a half years since the police started investigating this matter, during which time Micheal\u2019s life, as well as his successful career, has been put on hold. This has, inevitably, had a profound impact on him and those closest to him. Micheal is thankful this process has now reached a conclusion. He looks forward to getting back to the doing work he loves and focusing on the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIlyas added: \u201cAs he starts to rebuild his life, Micheal would like to acknowledge those who have experienced sexual violence and abuse. They deserve to be heard, treated with compassion, and have their allegations taken seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Micheal Ward, the BAFTA-winning British star of \u201cTop Boy\u201d and \u201cEddington,\u201d has been found not guilty of rape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,15285,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-685307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-micheal-ward","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}