A man cleared of trying to murder two people has finally walked free from Court after a judge threw out the remaining charge against him.

Veljko Cerovic had been due to go on trial at Sheffield Crown Court, accused of causing a woman grievous bodily harm with intent during a shooting incident in Silsden, near Keighley, on New Year's Eve 1997.

But the case was unexpectedly switched to Bradford Crown Court yesterday, where Judge Gerald Coles QC decided it would be unfair for a trial to take place.

He accepted submissions by defence counsel James Stewart QC that the acquittal of Cerovic, of Dorset Terrace, Harehills, Leeds, by a jury on three other charges arising from the same incident meant that the case had effectively been decided already.

Cerovic had spent a year in custody awaiting trial.

The judge said: "I am satisfied that it would not be fair to proceed. It would, in the first place, cause the prosecution great difficulties to call witnesses which the previous jury had found unreliable or even dishonest." He added that the jury in any new trial would be required to "exercise intellectual gymnastics of quite remarkable complexity."

Applying for the case to be dropped, Mr Stewart said Cerovic had originally been charged with attempting to murder Sarah Stronach and Philip Little and possessing a gun with intent to endanger life.

During the nine-day trial at Bradford Crown Court, 33-year-old Cerovic was alleged to have pressed the muzzle of the gun against Mr Little's head and pulled the trigger, but the weapon jammed.

He was then said to have fired the gun again, hitting Miss Stronach in the chest.

But in his evidence, Cerovic insisted that he thought the gun, which he had bought for £30 two weeks before the incident, was an imitation.

Cervoic, who went to the house to see his former girlfriend, Marie Stronach and their daughter who was 11 months old at the time, said he was "shocked and surprised" when the gun went off and he saw blood on the floor. It had suddenly gone off as Mr Little tried to grab hold of it.

Mr Stewart said the jury acquitted his client of all three charges but failed to reach a verdict on the grievous bodily harm charge which had been added at a later stage.

A guilty verdict now on that charge would be "manifestly inconsistent" with the acquittal on the firearms allegation, he added.

"In the trial process, if this trial were to proceed, the prosecution would be seeking to rely on evidence already rejected by the jury in the previous trial.

"To have a trial without those people would be a wholly unreal process, because they were the people involved at the time.

"The Crown's case, as left, is wholly untenable," said Mr Stewart.

Not only would it be unfair for a trial to take place, it would also be impossible for the defendant to receive a fair trial, he said.

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