A SPORTS organiser from Okehampton has been cleared of sexual assaults on three boys after the prosecution dropped the case against him.

David Knight, aged 55, had always denied all the allegations of abuse which were supposed to have taken place in Crediton and Okehampton between 1998 and 2006.

Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, Recorder of Exeter, last week recorded formal not guilty verdicts after David Evans, prosecuting, said the prosecution now intend to offer no evidence.

Mr Knight, of Station Road, Okehampton, had been accused of three charges of gross indecency with a boy aged under 14 at Crediton between 1998 and 2000.

He was also accused of causing an eight-year-old boy to engage in sexual activity at Okehampton between July and September 2004 and of raping the same boy, also in Okehampton, and the sexual touching of an 11-year-old boy at Okehampton between 2005 and 2006.

Mr Knight is a former foster carer who is director of the International Sporting Organisation which has run youth football tours around the world.