A teenager has been cleared of the manslaughter of his friend who died after being shot in the face with an air rifle.
The 13-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted shooting 12-year-old Mitchel Picken through the eye, but said the gun had gone off accidentally.
A jury at Stafford Crown Court took an hour and 40 minutes to return a unanimous not guilty verdict on the single charge of manslaughter.
On August 17 last year, Mitchel and the defendant had been playing with an air rifle at the home of a third boy in Stockton Brook, Staffordshire.
After taking turns to shoot targets in the garden from the boy's bedroom window, the defendant turned the loaded weapon inside the room and began pointing it at Mitchel.
The court heard that the defendant did this as a joke, intending to "scare him a bit".
The third boy, whose father owned the gun, told the court the defendant had been laughing as he pointed the gun at Mitchel, and said: "Are you scared? Bang! Bang! Bang!"
As he turned away, the gun went off, shooting Mitchel through the corner of the right eye. He was taken to hospital, where doctors discovered the pellet had passed through his brain, causing massive and irreparable injuries.
After consulting his family, doctors switched off his life support and he died on August 19.
The jury of seven women and five men rejected the prosecution's claim that in pointing a loaded air-rifle at Mitchel with his finger on the trigger, the defendant was criminally responsible for his death.
