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From the
http://www.kentonline.co.uk, 4 February 2005.
Teenager cleared over pub car park death.
A TEENAGER has been acquitted of killing a man after his trial was
dramatically halted by a judge at Maidstone Crown Court.
Jimmy Williams had been accused of throwing the single punch that led to
the death of pub customer Graham Wales. (Picture left)
But the case collapsed after the evidence of the two main prosecution
witnesses failed to reach the standard required.
One of the witnesses, Sean Dunn, was treated as hostile by the
prosecution when he failed to repeat vital evidence he had given to the
police. Mr Dunn was held in the cells at Maidstone Crown Court for two
days because he refused to attend voluntarily.
Judge Warwick McKinnon told Dunn that consideration was being given to
prosecute him for perjury.
“That is why I have decided not to take any further action with regard
to your plain and wilful refusal to answer the summons to attend court
when required,” he said.
Directing the jury to find 18-year-old Williams not guilty of
manslaughter, the judge said: “This is a sorry state of affairs.”
Alan Kent, prosecuting, had said that Mr Wales collapsed after he was
punched by Williams, then 17, at the "Bird In Hand" pub in Coxheath, near
Maidstone, on July 24 last year. He was put on a life support machine
and died four days later.
Alan Kent, prosecuting, said it was accepted that Williams did not
intend to kill Mr Wales, 42, or cause him serious bodily harm. "If he
did, it would be murder," he said.
The teenager, of Ringden Avenue, Tonbridge, denied manslaughter,
claiming that he did not punch Mr Wales.
After Mr Dunn was treated as a hostile witness on the second day of the
trial, Mr Kent told the jury that he was offering no further evidence
against Williams.
The prosecution, he said, relied solely on the evidence of Mr Dunn and
Adam Harwood.
“They were the only two people who gave an account to the police that
they had seen this defendant strike Mr Wales to the face, causing him to
fall to the ground and, thus, causing his death,” he said.
“Without their evidence, the Crown simply did not have a case against
the defendant. In view of the evidence given by Adam Harwood yesterday
and Sean Dunn today, there is no evidence that this defendant was the
person responsible for the blow.”
Mr Kent said Mr Wales’s sister and brother-in-law had been in court for
both days and his father had watched proceedings on Wednesday.
“It is with very great regret for them that they cannot see justice
done, but I cannot advance the Crown case any further,” he said.
Judge McKinnon told jurors that such a situation was “very rare indeed,
that jury’s are unable to bring their good judgement to bear on material
in a case because it may be the case that material is being improperly
withheld from them”.
He added: “It may be that some time in the future a formal decision will
have to be made as to whether, in fact, that has been the case. No
doubt, you will have formed your own conclusion as to what you have made
of the last two witnesses.
“Quite plainly, there is not any evidence fit to be left to you to
decide whether the defendant did it. There is not any evidence at all
that he did it.”
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