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A man wrongly accused and charged with raping a woman was the “innocent victim” of an avoidable mistake, the forensics watchdog said today.

Adam Scott was arrested and held in custody for months after a plastic tray containing a sample of his DNA was re-used in the analysis of a swab from a rape victim in Manchester by private firm LGC Forensics.

Forensic science regulator Andrew Rennison said Mr Scott, from Devon, was an "innocent victim of avoidable contamination".

"The contamination was the result of human error by a technician who failed to follow basic procedures for the disposal of plastic trays used as part of a validated DNA extraction process," he said.

"The procedures themselves were not adequate, leading to no records maintained by the technicians and nothing done to mark used trays as such."

Mr Scott was charged on 23 October 2011 over the rape of the woman in Plant Hill Park, Blackley, and remanded in custody until the case was withdrawn on March 7 this year, the regulator's report said.

It also emerged that the same error...