28/01/2013

Man Acquitted Of 25 Year Old Murder

A man has been acquitted of killing a pensioner more than 25 years ago after the Crown offered no evidence against him.

53-year-old David Mayberry Wallace, from NI but with an address Shaw Street, Bury, Lancashire was charged in 2010 with murdering Stanley Close at a flat in east Belfast in August 1986.

Belfast Crown Court heard today the PPS took the decision after "conducting a careful review of the evidence" and the jury was ordered to record a verdict of "not guilty by direction".

Mr Wallace, arrested in a joint operation between the PSNI and Greater Manchester, had been accused of murdering 65-year-old Mr Close in a flat at Canton Court.

Mr Close, a convicted killer himself having served 10 years behind bars for the manslaughter of Kevin Kielty who was gunned down at a bar on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast in July 1971, had been strangled to death.

(H)

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