Prison officers shielded a man acquitted of murdering his girlfriend when angry relatives of the victim rushed the dock in Armagh Crown Court yesterday. Mr Gary Edward Scullion (35), a salesman, was found not guilty by direction of the judge, Mr Justice Pringle, after he listened to 90 minutes of legal arguments at the end of the prosecution case. Mr Scullion had denied the charge. The family of the dead woman, Pamela Stevenson (31), had filled the public gallery in the No 2 courtroom in Newry Courthouse throughout the nine-day hearing. The estranged mother of two was found dead on the kitchen floor at the terraced house in Orangefield Drive, Armagh, which she shared with Mr Scullion for three years.
A vacuum cleaner flex was wrapped around her neck six times.
The discovery was made by her daughter, Samantha (12), when she came down to get breakfast around 8 a.m. on October 6th last year. Judge Pringle described her experience as the "most awful one could imagine".
When the judge gave his direction to jurors a woman relative ran from her seat towards the dock crying "Bastard" Another woman also shouted at the defendant.
Judge Pringle directed that both women be put out of the courtroom.
Mr Scullion who had sat impassively throughout the trial looked pale and shaken as he was freed by the judge. But before he left the dock he heard Judge Pringle tell jurors that their verdict "didn't mean she committed suicide, just that possibility".
The judge stressed: "It doesn't prove she committed suicide."
Earlier he had explained to the seven men and five women that the issue in the case had been of murder or suicide. The prosecution had to prove Mr Scullion's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. On the evidence up to the moment they were bound to find a possibility of suicide.
The court heard that throughout 10 police interviews Mr Scullion denied killing Mrs Stevenson. He insisted she had killed herself because he was leaving her for another woman.
But her husband, Sam, was adamant that she was returning to him and would have been back home by Christmas.
On the first day of the hearing a prosecution witness, the state pathologist, Prof Jack Crane, contended that Mrs Stevenson had been forcibly held face-down on the carpet and strangled from behind.
He said that self-strangulation had been a major consideration in his investigation because it was possible. But he came to the view that it was most unlikely the victim had committed suicide.
In the course of a lengthy submission Mr John McCrudden QC, defending, had argued that the case should be taken away from the jury. He described it as a "terribly dangerous case" fraught with emotions.