Updating Plugin error:140770FC:SSL

Hi All,

in trying to update the plugins on my current site, I get this error;
Downloading update from http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/akismet.2.5.10.zip…

An error occurred while updating Akismet: Download failed. error:140770FC:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:unknown protocol.

Any ideas anyone.
thanks in advance for your help.

Rey