by Keith Hunt

A care worker who fatally stabbed a man as he attacked her love cheat friend in a jealous rage has been cleared of murder and manslaughter.

Lara Doran gasped in relief as the jury of six men and six women returned unanimous not guilty verdicts after deliberating for less than three hours.

She admitted stabbing 21-year-old Andrew Wilby but claimed she was acting in defence of her friend Leann Phillips.

Miss Doran was taken down to the cells before being released. Her mother had watched from the public gallery.

Maidstone Crown Court heard the victim was stabbed in the back as he attacked Miss Phillips at Tennyson House, in Tennyson Avenue, on June 20 last year.

Attempts to save his life failed and he was pronounced dead at the QEQM Hospital in Margate soon afterwards.

The single wound had "nicked" the aorta, the main artery to the heart.

John Traversi, prosecuting, said Mr Wilby, 21, and Miss Phillips had been in a relationship involving jealousy and violence for a number of months.

Miss Doran and Miss Phillips had earlier been drinking heavily at clubs and pubs.

They met two soldiers in a bar and all later went to Miss Doran's flat. Miss Phillips had sex with one of the soldiers. Miss Doran was sick and went to bed.

Mr Wilby became jealous about what Miss Phillips might be doing that evening and decided to go to the flat.

The soldiers had left by the time he arrived in the early hours.

He and Miss Phillips argued and a fight broke out.

Miss Doran, 23, intervened and Mr Wilby stood up and said: "I have been stabbed."

Miss Doran, who denied the charges, did not give evidence because of health problems. She suffers from depression.

Her QC John Hilton told jurors Miss Doran, now of Rosemary Lane, Canterbury, had been assessed by two doctors who concluded it would be undesirable for her to go into the witness box.

She claimed in police interviews she attacked Mr Wilby with the knife because she feared for her friend's life.

"I just wanted him off her so he wouldn't kill her and then she was screaming cos he was bleeding," she said.

Doran added she removed the knife from Mr Wilby's back because she feared he would fall on it.