The victim of that violent attack by Amy Winehouse's thuggish husband Blake Fielder-Civil and his friend Michael Brown has been found not guilty of perverting the course of justice at Snaresbrook Crown Court.
As previously reported, former pub landlord James King was left with serious injuries, including a broken cheek bone, after he was beaten by the pair outside the Macbeth pub in Hoxton in June 2006. He, his attackers and two other men, Anthony Kelly and James Kennedy, were charged with perverting the course of justice after it was uncovered that he had been offered a £200,000 bribe to drop the case.
King told the court that Anthony Kelly had bullied him into withdrawing his statement last November and that he had had "no option" but to comply. He added that Kelly had told him that he represented a firm of gangsters.
The plot was uncovered when Kelly and James Kennedy tried to sell CCTV footage of the attack to the Daily Mirror but couldn't help boasting that they had "a bigger story". It was originally claimed that Kelly and Kennedy expected £20,000 each for their part in the deal and that the £200,000 bride offered to James King was bankrolled by Amy Winehouse. However, the singer has already been cleared of any involvement.