Man was jailed then cleared in case of student who drifted in and out of consciousness
Two of the most famous cases involving drink and the issue of consent involved Benjamin Bree, a computer software engineer, and student Ruairi Dougal, both of whom were ultimately cleared of rape charges involving a drunken woman.
Mr Bree, 25, was initially jailed for five years after binge drinking on vodka, Red Bull and cider with a 19-year-old Bournemouth University student then going back to her halls of residence and having sex with her.
At his trial in 2006, a jury at Bournemouth crown court heard the woman was "in and out" of consciousness during intercourse and that she had not, contrary to Bree's claim, consented to sex.
The following year the conviction was overturned at the Court of Appeal by Lord Judge, who is now the Lord Chief Justice. He said the woman had agreed to sex despite her drunken state.
Delivering the ruling in the Bree case, Lord Judge, who was sitting with Lady Justice Hallett and Mrs Justice Gloster, ruled that consent could be given even after "heavy alcohol consumption".
"If, through drink or for any other reason, the complainant has temporarily lost her capacity to choose whether to have intercourse on the relevant occasion, she is not consenting, and subject to questions about the defendant's state of mind, if the intercourse takes place, this would be rape," he said.
"However, where the complainant has voluntarily consumed even substantial quantities of alcohol but nevertheless remains capable of choosing whether or not to have intercourse, and in drink agrees to do so, this would not be rape."
In Mr Dougal's case, the 20-year-old Aberystwyth University student told Swansea crown court in 2005 that his 21-year-old accuser, who had been drinking vodka at a party, consented to sex.
She originally claimed Mr Dougal raped her in a corridor in her halls of residence after walking her home, but the prosecution withdrew the case after she admitted the effects of alcohol meant she could not remember whether or not she agreed to have sex.
The girl told Mr Dougal's trial she was sure she would not have consented to sex and that if she had wanted to sleep with him she would have taken him into her bedroom.
However, the defence said her inability to recall whether or not she gave consent made it impossible for Mr Dougal to be found guilty.
Although ministers later criticised the judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans, for wrongly dismissing the case, they were forced to apologise after discovering that it was actually the prosecution which had halted the trial.
