The ruling was made in Tullamore Circuit Court.
An eighteen-year-old male accused of sexually assaulting a girl four years ago when she was seven was found not guilty by direction of the judge at Tullamore Circuit Court.
The young man, who cannot be named, had denied six counts of sexually assaulting the girl on dates unknown in February, 2016.
In an interview conducted by a specialist garda and recorded on a DVD, the girl said the assaults had occurred in the bathroom of a neighbour's house.
She said she was playing with three other boys in a bedroom when the oldest one asked if she would go to the bathroom with him.
After initially refusing to go, she went to the bathroom herself and was followed by him.
In addition to sexually assaulting her, she said she was asked to look at his private parts and she touched them.
Similar events occurred again the following day, a jury of 10 men and two women were heard.
The girl's recorded statement was played on TV screens in the courtroom while the girl, now aged 11, stayed in a separate room in the same building.
When counsel for the defence, Colm Smyth, put it to the girl in cross-examination that the events did not occur, the girl said she could not now remember because it happened years back.
Mr Smyth also told the court the accused's penis could not have been touched in the manner described earlier because he had been circumcised in 2012.
The defence also said during the first day of the trial last Friday that the accused would say a picture had been taken on a Nintendo DS device of the girl's mother in bed with two young men.
The girl said she did not know anything about such a picture and said she used the DS to take photographs of stories she would make up.
The gardai inspected the device and could not find the photograph but when the girl's mother was cross-examined by Mr Smyth, she said that two men and two or three female friends of hers had come back with her one night from the pub and they were on the bed with her the following morning.
Her daughter had not been there that night but she returned in the morning.
On the second day of the trial on Tuesday prosecuting counsel Shane Geraghty introduced Dr Sinead Harty, a consultant paediatrician at Crumlin children's hospital.
She gave evidence of examining the girl and said it was her opinion that the girl had been abused.
When it was put to her that earlier medical reports indicated the girl had been treated for constipation, Dr Harty said the treatment was for mild constipation and did not change her finding that what she found in her examination was consistent with abuse being the cause.
However, she accepted that the best evidence in relation to the constipation would be provided by the GP who had treated the girl.
Acceding to an application yesterday from Mr Smyth that the case be stopped, Judge Keenan Johnson said it was an unusual one because of the length of time it had taken to come to court.
He said the girl was being honest but had said she could not remember what had happened and at its height, there would have to be a reasonable doubt about the evidence.
He also said it had only been discovered on the morning of the first day of the trial that the accused had previously been circumcised.
Therefore he directed the jury to record a not guilty verdict on all six of the counts.
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