Cleared: Luke McCarthy (outside Southwark Crown Court in London today) sucked one woman’s blood after carving a cross in his chest, it was claimed

A bondage lover described as having a vampire fetish was today cleared of raping two women after he said drinking their blood would be ‘unhygienic’.

Luke McCarthy, 28, of Vauxhall, South London, sucked one woman’s blood after carving a cross in his chest, it was claimed.

But the father-of-one insisted that any sex he had with either woman was consensual, and showed little reaction at Southwark Crown Court as jurors cleared him of four counts of rape.

McCarthy was alleged to have raped the first woman on two separate occasions at his parents’ house in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, between August and October 2009.

He rejected claims he had tied the woman up in his cupboard and made her sleep with her head in a cage on his floor.

He admitted once whipping a woman with a bamboo cane from his parents’ garden during sex but denied using the whip on this particular woman.

In a police interview McCarthy’s first alleged victim claimed: ‘He has this vampire fetish - he cut his chest in the shape of a cross and blood came out.

‘He got the back of my head and made me suck it out - I had no choice, I had to suck the blood.’

McCarthy argued that the blood-swapping had been a one-off incident and that he was not keen on the blood swap.

He told police: ‘She was apprehensive but I was continually asking her ‘are you sure you want to do this’. I think she licked it afterwards - I may have suggested it.’

Officers asked McCarthy if he had ‘licked her blood’ to which he replied ‘yes but there wasn’t any’. He claimed the act was ‘more of a symbolism’ than being an emulation of vampires.

The officer told McCarthy that the alleged victim had described him as ‘having a vampire fetish’.

McCarthy was alleged to have raped the first woman on two separate occasions at his parents’ house in Essex

McCarthy met the second woman at the Antichrist Club (pictured) which she described as a ‘gothic industrial fetish club that combines elements of the goth scene, the industrial music scene and the fetish scene’

McCarthy replied: ‘Not to the degree of I like going out next biting people and stuff like that - it’s unhygienic. It’s not a delusion of reality, it’s not a role play environment.’

He added that the exchange of blood was ‘something I don’t do regularly’, saying: ‘To my knowledge everything that we did was consensual on both parts.

‘The option was throughout the whole process that at any point she could say stop and it would just stop. She didn’t react in a negative way or say or give any indication that she didn’t want it to happen.’

When asked about S&M sex, McCarthy replied: ‘It was just how we were sexually. [The alleged victim] did want to experiment.

‘We did some alternative things beforehand, she didn’t give any indication that she didn’t want to. I never told her to put her head into a cage.’

He admitted having ‘whipped her back, her bottom and her vaginal area’ but denied claims he had ‘cut’ her genitals.

McCarthy admitted once whipping a woman with a bamboo cane from his parents’ garden during sex but denied using the whip on the particular woman in question

McCarthy met the second woman at the Antichrist Club which was described in court as a ‘gothic industrial fetish club that combines elements of the goth scene, the industrial music scene and the fetish scene’.

He claimed throughout that the sex was consensual and that the vampire act was ‘symbolic’ so that the two people would have a ‘special’ connection.

Asked if S&M dominated his sex life he replied: ‘At the moment, yes.’

He added: ‘One of the things about the dynamics involved in that is the person who has the most power is actually the submissive person because they are letting you do these things.

McCarthy told jurors that the second woman liked being pinned down during sex and that everything that happened with the first was part of a ‘master and slave’ agreement.