Not guilty verdicts were returned on murder and manslaughter

Not guilty verdicts were returned on murder and manslaughter on 14 January 2025 at the Old Bailey in Felicity’s defence trial where a year ago a jury returned not guilty verdicts but then said there had been a ‘mistake’ and were instead discharged without their verdicts being accepted. This time there were no errors, and the not guilty verdicts were returned in 55 minutes. Felicity had challenged the decision not to accept the original verdicts in the High Court on a writ for Habeas Corpus, combined with an application for judicial review and at the Crown Court on an application to stay the retrial indictment as an abuse of process.

Ultimately the retrial jury heard all the evidence including that each defendant had acted in reasonable self-defence, where the CCTV showed the victim and his associates as carrying what the pathologist described as lethal weapons.  Of interest is the development of a jury “script”. The retrial jury were asked to write down their verdicts before delivering them in court to reduce the risk of mistake or “stage fright”. We are not yet at the stage where the written verdicts are given to the court clerk to read out, to remove the personal attention on the foreperson, but, nonetheless, this case was an historic win for more than one reason.

To read more about the news on this case, click here Standard News