Stewart Allen, from Rushden, described his ordeal as 'living in hell', after Appeal Court judges quashed his conviction yesterday.
Mr Allen, who is now considering a compensation claim against the Home Office, said: "You can murder someone and you don't have to live through what I have been through. It's the stigma.
"As I always made clear, I was innocent from day one. I can't believe the length of time and the struggles I have had to go through."
Mr Allen, 49, was jailed at Northampton Crown Court for indecent assault after a jury found him guilty of the charge in 1998.
He was sentenced to three years in prison and served 18 months. But he has fought every day to try to clear his name. A jubilant Mr Allen finally won his case following a review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
The prosecution stemmed from an incident in July 1997, when an 18-year-old was approached after midnight in Rushden by a stranger, who grabbed her breasts when she refused him a kiss.
Her screams alerted locals and the attacker ran off. Minutes later, officers on a routine patrol stopped a man they saw running through the streets who they cornered in a nearby car park. The man gave false details and, unaware of the attack, officers let him go.
One of the officers later identified Mr Allen as the man they stopped in the car park, an allegation he denied, insisting he was at home with his wife at the time.
The flaws in the prosecution case centred on the fact the jury never learned the officer who picked out Mr Allen as the man in the car park had previously met the cab driver six weeks before the incident, when he attended a "domestic incident" at Mr Allen's home.
Lord Justice Longmore, sitting with Mr Justice Nelson and Dame Heather Steel, said the defence could have used this information to "undermine" the officer's testimony, as he might have been confused about the circumstances in which he met the cab driver.
And the case would inevitably have looked "weaker" once this information was deployed in rigorous cross-examination, the judge concluded.
Mr Allen said he felt over the moon and thanked Northamptonshire police after they unearthed old files and missing details.
The Commission highlighted concerns about the identification evidence which, according to the prosecution, implicated Mr Allen as the attacker, and yesterday Lord Justice Longmore said the Appeal Court could not cannot be sure the verdict was "safe".