Pair cleared of murder 15 years after SE London attack

Neil Woolford, 49, suffered a brain injury in an assault on August 24 2003 and died on March 10 2018.

He fell unconscious three days after the attack and had been in a permanent vegetative state ever since.

Carl Cumberbatch, 33 of Wallasey, Merseyside, and Karl Davidson, 38, of Bermondsey, south-east London, had denied his manslaughter.

Carl Cumberbatch (left) and Karl Davidson (right). Aaron Chown/PA Wire

An Old Bailey jury deliberated for seven-and-a-half hours to find the pair not guilty of the charge.

The court had heard how Mr Woolford was found collapsed in an alleyway by the Silver Buckle pub in Camberwell Green, south-east London.

He was taken to King's College Hospital where he was found to have suffered a catastrophic bleed on the brain, which in turn caused massive brain damage.

Three days before, Mr Woolford, then aged 35, was beaten around the head and face at his flat in Peckham, south-east London, jurors were told.

The victim told police he was hit about 20 times and battered over the head with a wooden pole.

Neil Woolford, who suffered a brain injury in an assault on August 24 2003 and died on March 10 2018. Family Handout

The court heard Davidson pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm upon Mr Woolford in June 2004 at Inner London Crown Court.

It was claimed Mr Woolford's death in 2018 from bronchopneumonia was a "direct consequence of the event causing his subdural haematoma and collapse back in 2003".

The court heard Mr Woolford, a former Boots security officer, had suffered with schizophrenia and had not worked since 1994.

A key issue for the jury to consider was whether it was "more likely than not" that the assault on August 24 did not cause the brain injury identified three days later.