A Conservative MP’s chief of staff wiped tears from his eyes as he was acquitted of raping a young parliamentary worker in his boss’s Westminster office.

Samuel Armstrong, 24, was accused of attacking the woman when she fell asleep after a night drinking in the Houses of Parliament.

The victim, who is in her 20s, said she “felt like a hostage” when she was raped twice by South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay’s senior aide.

But Armstrong, who was arrested after the woman was captured on CCTV running through the corridors of Westminster in tears in the early hours of October 14 last year, insisted they had consensual sex.

On Thursday, a jury of seven women and five men at Southwark Crown Court found him not guilty of two counts of rape, one of sexual assault and one of assault by penetration, after a two-week trial.