Call for change in law after builder's trial is dropped over burglar's death

Omari Roberts, 23, was told by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) no evidence would be offered, the day he was due to stand trial for the murder of 17-year-old Tyler Juett.

Nottingham Crown Court heard Mr Roberts confronted the teenager at his mother's home in Nottingham after he returned home from work for a lunch break in March last year.

Mr Roberts grabbed a kitchen knife from a drawer to protect himself as he was attacked by Juett's 14-year-old accomplice, who it is also believed was armed with a blade.

In the struggle the youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was stabbed twice in the knee. Juett, who had been upstairs ransacking a bedroom, rushed down to confront Mr Roberts and, in a fight, was stabbed in the shoulder, severing a major artery.

It emerged yesterday that Juett's accomplice was the prosecution's main witness, in spite of having an anti-social behaviour order banning him from parts of the area and a string of convictions for violent offences, including burglary. Mr Roberts was formally found not guilty over the death. In a Press conference following the hearing, it emerged some police officers had not wanted the case to be brought against Mr Roberts.

His mother Jacqueline McKenzie-Johnson, 47, said the law now needed to be clarified.

At present home-owners are not allowed to use "unreasonable force" but there have been calls for it to be strengthened so that only "grossly disproportionate force" would warrant prosecution. She said: "There's a need for clarification on 'reasonable force'. I particularly believe that when you are faced with an intruder in your own home, the expectation that you behave reasonably doesn't seem to fit.

"There are number of things that have had a bearing and I am sure that the General Election had something to do with it.

"Also, the overwhelming support we have had from the public may have influenced the decision as well as the fact there was no evidence."

Jerome Lynch QC, Mr Roberts' defence barrister, said he had not ruled out making a compensation claim. "They (CPS) send police to wherever he (the accomplice) is serving his prison sentence and they get a completely different version because he can't remember what lies he told last time. They think they can't rely on him and they drop the case."