US son not guilty of father's death

A jury has swiftly acquitted a teenager accused of the manslaughter of his father. The 19-year-old accused heard the verdict in the High Court at Wellington with his head bowed, just as it had been through most of the four days of his trial. The jury of seven men and five women heard that the 50-year-old father had a severe heart condition and his coronary arteries were at least 90 per cent blocked. On October 31, 2010, after an hour-long stressful dispute between his two children, during which his son pushed and punched him, he collapsed and died. The jury had time for lunch and reached its verdict in little over an hour. Speaking after court the son's lawyer, Bruce Squire, QC, said the speed of the decision was in his view a clear indication that the jury thought the son should not have been charged. Mr Squire said he thought it was a mistake to have charged manslaughter on the very tenuous evidence the Crown had. The son, who has name suppression in the meantime, was very distraught during the trial but managed to hold himself together, Mr Squire said. The brother of the dead man and uncle of the accused said the acquittal was a "huge, huge" relief. The man's death had been traumatic for the whole family and only two months later the son had lost another person close to him when his grandfather died. The uncle said he had no doubts about supporting the youth who had lived with him while he was awaiting trial. He trusted his nephew to look after his younger cousins and would not have left him in the house alone with them if he did not trust him fully. The teenager also worked in the same company as his uncle since his father died. The teenager had been a year 13 student with a leadership role at his school when his father died. His life had been on hold while the trial was pending but now it could go back on course and he could go to university, the uncle said. "I am right there fully supporting him." "It is a tragedy for all parties and nobody is a winner."