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.

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.”