THE charge against a 19-year-old youth of murdering a taxi driver was
found not proven yesterday at the High Court in Paisley.
Mr David Anderson stood motionless as a young woman juror returned the
unanimous verdict.
Mr Anderson's mother burst into tears as Lord Cameron simply told her
son: ''You are free to go.''
Women relatives of stabbed taxi driver Mr Raymond Mullan, 39, sitting
opposite 44-year-old Mrs Willis Anderson in the court, also broke down
in tears.
Women jurors who had listened to evidence for six days also wept
openly.
However angry taxi colleagues of father of three Mr Mullan stormed out
of the court building.
Earlier, defence counsel Mr Donald Findlay, QC, warned the jury
against committing what he said would be a ''horrendous injustice'' by
finding his client guilty.
He claimed the prosecution had ''not a scrap'' of evidence as to what
actually happened in the taxi when Mr Mullan was killed. He described it
as being the most motiveless murder case ever.
Mr Anderson, of Nelson Road, Gourock, admitted in evidence to being in
the taxi. He claimed he was going to hunt rabbits with his dog in
countryside near Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire.
He said Mr Mullen, of Wren Road, Greenock, panicked when he showed him
his hunting knife.
Mr Anderson claimed Mr Mullan threw himself from the driving seat on
top of him and impaled himself accidently on the knife.
He could give no explanation as to how the knife got from Mr Mullan's
chest to a riverbank or how the white Sierra taxi was driven and
abandoned in a Greenock housing scheme.
Mr Mullan's body was found by a passing motorist at 3 am on the
roadside only minutes after he died.
Mr Anderson hurried from the courtroom surrounded by friends and
declined to comment.
Mr Jim Johnston, chairman of Mr Mullan's firm, Inverclyde Taxis, said:
''We are all shocked and shattered by the jury's verdict.''
Mrs Mullan was unavailable for comment last night. A family friend
said: ''She has been grief-stricken since the day and hour of Raymond's
killing.''
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