Man walks free from Qld court cleared of murder

On Halloween night 2020, Kevin Jones got into an altercation and died after arriving at a Brisbane house with a bottle of fuel, wearing a hoodie and black gloves.

More than two years after the struggle with Mr Jones, Jason Moana Rimene, 54, walked free from court cleared of murder.

Mr Rimene on Tuesday was a relieved man as he left Brisbane Supreme Court following an acquittal at the judge's direction in week two of his trial.

His defence had made a no case to answer submission, saying the Crown could not prove Mr Rimene's actions caused Mr Jones' death based on a pathologist's evidence.

The defence accepted that Mr Rimene inflicted injuries upon Mr Jones after they got into a struggle outside the house.

According to Mr Rimene, in Justice Sue Brown's judgment, Mr Jones hit his head a couple of times after he was thrown or pushed to the ground during the altercation.

However the pathologist said Mr Jones' injuries were inflicted with a "mild to the lower end of the moderate" range of force.

The pathologist gave evidence that Mr Jones also had a number of pre-existing injuries or medical conditions, including "severe" heart disease.

Mr Jones also suffered a severe narrowing of the arteries, the most common cause of heart attacks, and "could have had a sudden death anytime", the pathologist said.

The pathologist agreed Mr Jones could have died at any point of the altercation due to the state of his heart.

Justice Brown said in her judgment the pathologist's opinion and the underlying heart conditions supported a reasonable hypothesis that Mr Jones' death could have been a "spontaneous event".

"The present case is not one where the circumstances speak for themselves in establishing whether the conduct of the defendant was a substantial cause of the deceased's death," she said.

Justice Brown noted there was evidence of Mr Rimene inflicting "neck and head injuries which extend to internal brain injuries".

However she said there was also evidence that gave rise to reasonable inferences that Mr Jones died of a cardiac event "caused by the heightened state of the deceased or his own actions that evening in turning up ... with fuel and at least in spreading the fuel on the ground".

"There is no evidence capable of excluding the reasonable hypotheses that death was caused by a cardiac event unrelated to the defendant's physical acts," Justice Brown said.

"Medical evidence was necessary to link the conduct of the defendant to the death in the circumstances of this case.

"...(The pathologist's) evidence clearly does not establish that the defendant's conduct was a substantial cause of death."

After considering the no case to answer application Justice Brown directed the jury to enter a verdict of not guilty for charges of murder and manslaughter on Tuesday.

An "extremely" relieved Mr Rimene thanked his legal team for "seeing this case through" outside court after being cleared.