Warden cleared over brain clot boy (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Warden cleared over brain clot boy

7:48am Monday 19th February 2007 in Swindon By Gazette Reporter

A warden at an old folks' home has been cleared of any wrongdoing after a child he chased and picked up ended up with a blood clot on his brain.

A jury at Swindon crown court found burly Adam Henly not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to the young boy.

The 12-year-old had been knocking on doors and running away when he went to Henly's home at Elizabeth House, Queens Drive, Walcot, in December 2005.

The 38-year-old chased him away catching the lad up on Hatton Grove and picking him up to tell him off.

He said that what happened next was an accident as the boy fell to the ground bashing his head against the pavement.

Henly then left him as the boy was taken home before being operated on and detained at hospitals in Swindon, Oxford and London for ten days.

The boy, his two brothers, and a woman who was standing outside her house, all said they saw the man throwing the child to the ground.

But Henly, whose wife Caroline is a community warden, insisted it was an accident and the jury of six men and six women found him not guilty following the judge telling them he would accept a verdict upon which ten of them agreed.