"So you don't believe any men should be convicted of rape MinesAPint? As in the majority of cases that's one person's word against anothers and consent is what's disputed?"
However, there's often evidence that sex took place, and as you say, the case then becomes about consent. And although obviously evidence of violence, or force is not a necessary part of that (as we aren't living in 1973), it is nonetheless part of many trials. That's not the case here, where there's no evidence that sex of any sort took place other than the testimony of one person. Given the girl's age at the time of the alleged offences, consent wouldn't have been relevant, so forensic evidence would have been pretty much probative.
None of us were in court, so all the things that can't be reported mean we know very little about the case. Presumably there's evidence as to how he had access to her, as a child, over a period of some time. For those of us watching from the sidelines, I'm not sure how much evidence there was that actually shows that the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator of the alleged crimes were ever in the same postcode.
The thing that jumps out at me is:
"The allegations emerged in September 2011 after she and her mother attended a motivational talk by a woman who herself claimed to have been raped as a child."
"Recovered memory" cases have a terrible history, and juries are today very, very reluctant to convict on such evidence.