A 16-year-old boy has been found not guilty of murder over the fatal stabbing of a teenager.
Shayne Hambakachere, 16, was wounded on 31 January in Chippenham and died in Southmead Hospital in Bristol the following day.
He had gone to meet the teenager - who cannot be named due to his age - to settle an argument over stolen cannabis. The trial was told the pair had agreed to meet in an alleyway where Shayne, who was unarmed, was stabbed in the chest.
The jury at Bristol Crown Court returned the not guilty verdict after nearly 12 hours of deliberations. The boy was also found not guilty of manslaughter.
Inside the court, the unnamed teenager - who had told the court he stabbed Shayne because he was afraid he was going to be attacked - showed no emotion while the verdicts were read out.
Members of the victim's family were seen leaving the public gallery in tears.
The trial began on 10 August and lasted for nine days.
'I wanted to scare him'
Giving evidence, the boy previously told the court he "wasn't aiming" when the knife plunged into Shayne's heart.
"My intention was not to kill him," he told the prosecution. "My intention was to scare Shayne away from the alley [...] I felt he was about to attack me with something in his pocket. I thought Shayne was about to stab me."
Sarah Jones, acting for the prosecution, had told the unnamed teenager: "You aimed that knife at his heart."
"I wasn't aiming," replied the teenager. "I didn't think I had caused Shayne serious injury."
The court heard the unnamed boy, who was 15 at the time of the stabbing, had stolen cannabis from Shayne 12 days before the stabbing and there were "tensions" between them.
Both teenagers entered the alleyway after Shayne had visited the other boy's house, the court had been told.
'Exposed to gang culture'
The jury was shown footage of Shayne trying to escape when he saw the knife, which was found in an abandoned care home in Chippenham.
In his closing speech to the jury, defending barrister Charles Row said the teenager had been exposed to gang culture and had been influenced by social media content "full of knives, guns and of drugs".
He added: "We as a society need to ask ourselves, how does someone like [unnamed boy] go from being a contented loving child in Year 9 to one who is caught up in the world of county lines by Year 10."