A Dover man found with blood on his clothes and his DNA on a knife after a vicious stabbing near a nightclub has been acquitted.

Ryan Derby had been arrested by police after a brave husband was knifed going to the aid of his wife outside the town's Deja Vous club in Adrian Street.

But now a judge has ruled the 31-year-old, who denied wounding Darren Catt with intent, has no case to answer and instructed the jury to return not guilty verdicts.

They had heard evidence at Canterbury Crown Court from the former lover of Derby’s pal Khyle Harding how the two men returned laughing after the attack.

Harding, 23, of Thamesmead, London, admitted a lesser charge of unlawful wounding after the two-man attack on Mr Catt last March.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service claimed it was Derby who had plunged the knife into Mr Catt, which resulted in him being taken to a London hospital with a punctured lung.

But at the end of the prosecution case, Judge Rupert Lowe ordered the jury to formerly return not guilty verdicts on charges of wounding and possessing the knife in a public area.

During legal argument, the judge said: “A knife was discovered close to the scene of the stabbing of Darren Catt with his blood on the blade.

“On the handle of that knife was found DNA from Mr Derby.

“When Derby was interviewed by police, he told, what can only be understood in the light of other evidence, as being a number of lies about his knowledge of the knife, his knowledge of Khyle Harding, his proximity to the violence and about (Mr Catt’s) wet blood on two of his garments, which was contact staining.”

Darren Catt told the jury how had been attacked by two men, one in front of him and the other behind him which he fought off.

He then bent down to help his stricken wife, Nikki, who had been become embroiled in fight with a woman who she confronted after the theft of her handbag.

As her did he felt a “dull blow” to his rib cage and although he didn't realise until later, he had been stabbed.

Harding’s former partner, Daniker Doughty, had told the jury how her ex-lover had confessed to her on three occasions he had stabbed Mr Catt.

She said Harding and Derby had “thought it funny” others believed it was Derby who had struck the blow.

“If Derby were convicted of being the stabber, I would consider that an injustice would have been done” - Judge Rupert Lowe

Judge Lowe said the CPS had been “too strongly attached” to believing Derby and not Harding had been “the stabber...in the face of equivocal evidence.”

He added: “I do not believe a jury could be sure on the evidence before me that Derby was the stabber.

"However, the evidence is consistent with him being the stabber but it is more consistent with Khyle Harding being the stabber.

“If Derby were convicted of being the stabber, I would consider that an injustice would have been done.”

He added Derby’s behaviour was suspicious and had the CPS believed the two men were jointly responsible for what happened, the case was unlikely to have been stopped.

Derby was returned to prison for being in breach of his prison licence for another offence.

Harding and Tia Wesley, 19, of Chevalier Road, Dover, who admitted theft of a handbag, will be sentenced later.

Before the start of the trial, the CPS had dropped an assault charge against Jack Thompson, 24, from Milner Crescent, Aylesham, against another man. He had denied the offence.