Christopher William Ryalls (63) was cleared of the charge when a jury unanimously found him not guilty following three hours of deliberation at the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
Once the jury had been dismissed the farmer - and former firefighter with nearly 40 years' experience - cried and was embraced by supporters in the public gallery.
The complainant, who was significantly younger than Ryalls, said that on July 17 last year he came to her house and she secretly asked friends to come over because she felt uncomfortable around the man.
The defendant left the Mosgiel home and sat in his car.
He waited for the woman's friends to leave before going back to the house.
The complainant told the jury he led her into the bedroom and had sex with her while she repeated "I don't want to do this".
But defence counsel Anne Stevens said that version of events did not fit with the evidence the court heard.
"There is a pre-existing relationship where sex has been on the table for months," she said.
Ryalls, the court heard, would help the woman with jobs around the house and at least twice, including on the day of the alleged incident, aided her with car troubles.
The defendant was "a man genuinely pleased to help, a true handyman. The No8 wire guy," his counsel said.
Mrs Stevens, in her closing address, said the woman was the one who repeatedly requested her client's assistance.
"Christopher Ryalls is not predatory or pushy. He comes only at [her] request," she said.
"The pressure is from her, not from him. He is not a predator."
The complainant was pressed during cross-examination as to why she did not resist the man's physical advances if she did not welcome them.
Ryalls told police the pair had kissed on the couch beforehand and he was sure the woman was enjoying the activity as they retired to the bedroom.
He admitted saying "I'm sorry", when they had finished.
While the complainant took Ryalls' post-coital apologies to refer to non-consensual sex, Mrs Stevens said there was a more innocent explanation.
Her client, she said, had not had sex for three years and was actually apologising for the brevity of the episode.
The complainant put her inaction down to being "frozen" in the moment.
Mrs Stevens was scathing of her explanation.
"What rubbish. What absolute rubbish," she told the jury.
The woman's phone was beside the bed, within arm's reach, and a concerned friend was calling her, yet she did not pick up.
Mrs Stevens told the court the rape claim came from the woman's desire to preserve her relationship with her on-off boyfriend.
Once she told her partner she had sex with someone else, she had to frame it as rape or they would be finished.
"She had been sprung; she had to make it non-consensual and then she had to go to the police and here we are," Mrs Stevens said.
