THREE men convicted of an online chatroom conspiracy to abduct and rape schoolgirls were cleared by the Court of Appeal today.

Appeal judges in London held that evidence of the ''repulsive'' and lust-driven online exchanges between the men was just as indicative of fantasy as actual intent to commit rape.

The case against them, in the light of other evidence indicating they had no intention of pursuing their perverted scenario, should never have been put to the jury at their trial because there was ''no case to answer''.

David Dyer, 43, of Bransgore, in the New Forest; Alan Hedgecock, 42, of Twickenham, south-west London; and Robert Mayers, 43, of Warrington, Cheshire, were given indeterminate sentences at Southwark Crown Court in February this year.

Dyer was told he would serve a minimum of 11 years, while Hedgecock and Mayers were given at least eight years. Those sentences were set aside today.

But all three men - who had never met in reality until their arrest - pleaded guilty to distributing, making and possessing indecent images of children, for which they will continue to serve sentences of four, three and three years respectively.

The case came to light when Dyer walked into a police station and admitted what had been going on in his chatroom conversations with the other men about abducting and violently raping two identifiable girls, aged 13 and 14.

He handed over discs containing some of the internet chat and exchanges of pornographic pictures. He said he was concerned that it might be serious rather than sexual fantasy.

Lord Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice Lloyd Jones and Sir Michael Astill, said today that the conversations were plainly ''so motivated by sexual lust that it cannot be said that reality was any more probable than fantasy''.

Other evidence showed that the ''conspiracy'' was no more than fleeting because the three men did not maintain contact with each other and made no arrangements to meet. Some of the information they gave each other about their respective identities was false.

In those circumstances, no reasonable jury could have concluded that they actually intended to commit rape.