New appeal as Daniel McLean stabbing case is thrown out

Published: 03 June 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

A THIEF who nearly killed a Camden Town musician over £10 is still loose after the man accused of carrying out the attack walked free from court.

Bradley Molyneux, 32, of Harmood Street, Chalk Farm, was charged with grievous bodily harm and robbery following the attack on Daniel McLean, bassist and singer with a band called The Voxx.

Mr McLean, who was with a work colleague, was knifed through the heart during a scuffle outside the Barfly in Chalk Farm Road in November 2008, and “died twice” on the operating table during emergency surgery. His remarkable recovery was described as a “miracle”.

The case against Mr Molyneux collapsed on Tuesday after prosecutors told Blackfriars Crown Court there was not enough evidence against him.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Molyneux, an industrial carpet cleaner, described the past 18 months in which he was released on police bail 10 times as a “nightmare” that had driven him to anti-depressants.

He said: “I’m very disgusted by this case. It’s wrecked my family life; my kids have been getting tormented.”

It was Mr Molyneux’s defence barrister, Miranda Bevan, who had earlier applied for the case to be dismissed.

After a brief adjournment to review CCTV footage – a key plank of the police evidence – the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) accepted Ms Bevan’s application for dismissal without challenge. 

Tristan Chaize, the CPS barrister, said circumstantial evidence was weak and CCTV footage did not tally with witness accounts of the suspect. Mr McLean picked out a volunteer in an identity parade, he added.

Mr Chaize also apologised for mistakes made by the CPS, and admitted that evidence handed to them by detectives had been lost. 

He said: “Having now discounted the identity parade evidence, the DNA evidence doesn’t take us anywhere, doesn’t say if it’s male or female – we are left with nothing other than the CCTV [showing Mr Molyneux] going back and forth with another man [in clothes] which don’t fit the description.”

Judge Deva Pillay, dismissing the case and praising Ms Bevan for flagging up the lack of evidence, described CPS mistakes as “endemic” in the court system. He said he would ensure they were reprimanded for their failure to meet a court order made last month in the case.

A CPS spokesman said: “As a result of clarification of the identification evidence it was concluded that it was more undermining than originally thought and that minor discrepancies which normally would not be important now took on greater significance. The reviewing lawyer concluded that the circumstantial evidence was now not sufficient to argue against a defence application to dismiss.” 

Detective Inspector Gary Randall said the case would now be inactive unless new evidence came to light.

Urging witnesses to come forward with any new information, he added: “From my point of view we presented the police investigation and all available evidence to the CPS and they charged [Mr Molyneux] after applying their full code test. It was a very difficult case.”

Mr McLean spoke to the New Journal shortly after the attack as he lay in hospital recovering.

He said: “I could remember his face as I aimed for it. His sunken eyes emotionless as he brought his raised knife hard into my chest. Jennifer’s screaming, pleading with me to run as I lay stunned with my head on the kerb. The 50-yard stagger I managed to the street corner and the bloody realisation that came with it: ‘Oh god, he got me’.”