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Two men were today found guilty over the killing off-duty policeman Neil Doyle during a Christmas night out in Liverpool.

Ex-semi professional footballer Andrew Taylor, 29, who prosecutors alleged threw the “piledriver” punch which ruptured the Eaton Road officer’s neck artery, was convicted of manslaughter but acquitted of murder.

He was convicted over punches that injured PC Doyle’s colleagues, PC Michael Steventon and PC Robert Marshall.

Timmy Donovan, 30, who fled to Germany in the wake of the violence, was also convicted of manslaughter but acquitted of murder.

Donovan was also convicted of wounding PC Marshall with intent, after kicking, punching and stamping on him as he was grounded by Taylor’s swing, but cleared of causing grievous body harm to PC Steventon.

Ex-footballer Christopher Spendlove, 30, who was alleged to have thrown a solitary punch, was cleared of murder and manslaughter charges and walks free.

Watch: Christopher Spendlove walks free from court

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He was cleared of wounding PC Marshall and causing grievous body harm PC Steventon.

Jurors returned verdicts today after five weeks of evidence.

Newlywed officer PC Doyle, from Walton, was fatally punched in Colquitt Street in the early hours of December 19 last year during a night out with colleagues.

The devastating blow which claimed his life was out of shot on CCTV cameras, but prosecutors maintained that Taylor delivered the blow after flooring PC Steventon and Marshall in quick succession.

Taylor, who formerly played in non-league circles, admitted that he hit PC Doyle’s colleagues but claimed he was acting in self-defence and in his belief that he had been under attack.

He initially admitted punching PC Doyle in interview - but later told police officers that he had been mistaken.

Prosecutors had accused the defendants of a “conspiracy of silence” and “each individually trying to save their own skin”.

Nick Johnson, QC, alleged that the defendants conspired to say that no-one saw or heard who killed PC Doyle - but because it must have been Taylor or Donovan, those two had “to blame the other”

PC Doyle and his two colleagues, who both suffered nasty head injuries, had left the Peacock bar in Seel Street, where officers were enjoying festive celebrations, at around 3am on the Friday morning.

They were approached by Taylor, who enquired “Are you having a good evening, officer?” - despite claiming that he did not know that PC Doyle was a serving policeman.

Taylor would tell the jury that “officer” was just a term he used when joking with friends.

Four minutes and 56 seconds after that initial coming together, PC Doyle collapsed into the gutter on Colquitt Street.

What happened in that short spell was central to the trial.

The defence alleged that PC Doyle had been “very angry” and “spoiling for a fight”, and that a murder charge should never have been brought.

Lord Alexander Carlile, for Taylor, claimed that the officer “went after” his client, had to be restrained by his friends in Seel Street, and followed Taylor into Colquitt Street.

He said: “Mr Taylor may have gone a little too far in his conversation in Seel Street but it most certainly did not justify what Mr Doyle did in the seconds that followed.”

Prosecutors alleged that the attack was “one-way traffic” and that PC Doyle was “baited” into a fight.

Nick Johnson, QC, said the defendants stuck together afterwards and carried on their evening “as if nothing had happened.”

PC Doyle died from an unsurvivable injury to a neck artery - the same injury that killed the Australian test cricketer Philip Hughes less than a month before, when he was hit by a ball on the side of his neck.

He had served Merseyside Police since May 2004 and served in Tuebrook and Walton Lane stations.

Spendlove, of Brandearth Hey, Stockbridge Village; Taylor, of Cherry Tree Road, Huyton; and Donovan, of Walsingham Road, Childwall, had denied all charges.

Look back over our coverage of the trial here