Three men have been unanimously found not guilty of killing a 32-year-old man after an Old Bailey jury forewoman in their first trial cleared them by “mistake”.
Adrian Keise was fatally stabbed in the back after a minor row erupted in violence outside Waterloo station in 2022.
On Tuesday, a jury deliberated for 55 minutes to find Paul Yusuff, 22, and his brother Matthew Yusuff, 24, not guilty of murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.
Their friend Moussa Traore, 25, was cleared of manslaughter at the conclusion of a controversial retrial following their accidental acquittal last year.
As the verdicts were returned one of Mr Keise’s relatives walked out of court in tears, saying: “I can’t believe it. I actually can’t believe it and they are going to do it again. They’re going to do it again.”
Speaking outside court, Paul Yusuff’s barrister Kerim Fuad KC told reporters: “It’s so tragic that many lives have been ruined.
“Two boys of good character with this hanging over them for two years, one of which was in custody.
“Two juries, same verdict in only 55 minutes this time. Seems they got it right the first time.”
The fresh verdicts from the jury in the weeks-long retrial, which is thought to have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, come a year and three days after the first trial ended.
The original trial jury was reduced from 12 to 11 when one of their number became ill and died before Christmas 2023.
Last January 11, the family of Mr Keise had left court tearful and shaken after the defendants, from London, were unanimously found not guilty the first time.
Minutes later, the court was reconvened urgently after it emerged the forewoman of the jury had made a mistake and not all jurors had agreed on the verdicts.
The jurors were sent out to deliberate again, and, while they later found Paul Yusuff not guilty of possessing a blade or point, they were unable to reach verdicts on the other charges and were discharged a second time.
Judge Charles Gratwicke, who had come out of retirement to hear the first trial, had faced opposition from the defence when the forewoman’s error first came to light in a note minutes after he had discharged the jury.
After the original jury was discharged a second time, Mr Fuad said he remained “extremely troubled” by what had happened.
He had expressed concern that the defendants, who were all in custody at the time, were being detained “illegally” in light of the first verdicts.
The three men, who denied all the charges against them, went on to challenge their detention at HMP Belmarsh ahead of their retrial in December.
Their barristers had argued that the first not guilty verdicts were “valid” and should not have been “reopened”.
Three High Court judges rejected their case, concluding that the jury forewoman had suffered “a form of stage fright” amid the “stressful environment” of court proceedings.
Ahead of their retrial, the defendants were eventually granted bail, but Mr Traore was remanded in custody mid-trial after absenting himself for two days.
The court had heard how Mr Keise was chased down the street and stabbed three times in the back by Paul Yusuff after a minor row escalated into violence in the early hours of October 29 2022.
Mr Keise was unable to defend himself when surrounded by all three defendants, with Matthew Yusuff wielding a bottle, it was alleged.
He was rushed to hospital where he later died from his injuries.
Mr Keise had spent the evening drinking with friends at the Thirsty Bear pub in nearby Stamford Street before his path crossed with the defendants near the Cubana Bar in Lower Marsh, near Waterloo station.
Prosecutor Ed Brown KC had said: “An innocuous, minor and quite insignificant disagreement grew to an altercation and then escalated into a period of uncontrolled violence quite out of any proportion to the initiating event – all taking place in the streets of central London.
“It was, and is, a tragic waste of a life for which there was, and is, no justification – in law or otherwise.”
The Yusuff brothers had claimed they acted in self-defence and Mr Traore declined to give evidence.
Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC, who presided over the retrial, thanked the jurors before they left court.
