A man charged with murder has walked free from court after a judge ruled he had acted in self defence when he stabbed a friend who attacked him with a baseball bat.

Darren Pearce wept and hugged his family after Judge Stuart McKinnon ordered the jury to acquit him of the charge of murder. He said the stabbing of John McCready in a violent row had been a "classic case of self defence".

The trial at Chelmsford Crown Court came nearly nine months after Mr McCready, 31, died from a single stab wound to the abdomen following the row at Mr Pearce's home in Bryn Farm Close, Basildon.

The jury had heard how Mr McCready attacked his friend with a bat and that Mr Pearce grabbed a kitchen knife to defend himself.

The judge ordered the jury to find Mr Pearce, 35, not guilty of murder or manslaughter.

At the end of the prosecution case, the judge told the jury Mr McCready, of Long Riding, Basildon, had been "drunk, unstable and unpredictable" and had "lost control".

He said: "The defendant feared for his life and, as any jury would be bound to find, rightly so. It would not be right to allow this case to go on. That is my decision."

Mr McCready collapsed and died later in hospital. As Darren Pearce left court, he said: "I just want to go."

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Published Friday, March 22, 2002