A construction worker has been cleared of murdering a man who died more than a decade after being hit with a baseball bat.

Neil Sutherland, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, had previously been jailed for assault causing grievous bodily harm to Paul Mills, a former soldier who sustained brain injuries in the July 2006 attack.

But Sutherland was brought back before a court charged with his murder after Mills died at his home in Wiltshire in 2017, aged 44.

The prosecution at Salisbury crown court claimed Mills died of epilepsy that had been brought on by the injuries inflicted by Sutherland in the attack.

After a jury found him not guilty, Sutherland criticised the police for pursuing him. “I am feeling relieved from all the stress and pressure, from the police putting me as a murderer for years,” he said.

William Mousley QC, prosecuting, said Mills sustained a fractured skull and brain damage in the attack. “Paul Mills developed epilepsy from the injuries that he suffered,” he told the jury.

“He had his first seizures not long after he had been taken to hospital and from that day on, there were regular seizures for nearly 11 years.

“At the beginning of March 2017, he was found dead in his home where he lived alone after having suffered, the prosecution say, an epileptic fit.”

He said a pathologist concluded “there was an unbroken link” between Mills’ death and the assault.

James Newton-Price QC, defending, told the court the link between the assault and death was disputed, and argued Mills’ earlier lifestyle of heavy drinking and drug-taking could have contributed.