Timothy Omotoso, a Nigerian pastor in South Africa has been found not guilty of rape after spending Eight years behind bars in a South African jail.

The Nigerian televangelist was accused of raping young women from his South African church.

Timothy Omotoso had denied the 32 charges in a trial that was broadcast live and gained huge interest across the country.

In 2018, one witness told the court she had been raped by the pastor – who ran a church in the city of Port Elizabeth – when she was 14 years old.

When delivering the verdict on Wednesday, the judge presiding over the trial said that Mr Omotoso had been found not guilty because prosecutors had mishandled the case.

South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) shared a similar assessment, saying that “former prosecutors in the case acted improperly and the accused were not sufficiently cross-examined by the state”.