Two men who had been accused of plotting to kill five witnesses in a court case have been spared a second trail despite a jury being unable to decide if they had intended to carry out the murders.

Lawyers representing Sinclair Durrant, 53, and Javon Ernest Gardner, 27, successfully argued before a judge that to bring the men back to court to face the same conspiracy to kill charges would be an abuse of the legal process.

Mr. Durrant and Mr. Gardner had originally faced six charges, namely the five conspiracy to kill counts and one charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The pair were alleged to have mailed a package to a third man in Jamaica, which contained $1,900 and a letter listing witnesses in a separate court case against Mr. Gardner, of Crossfield Lane, Sandys.

Against five of the witnesses named in the letter were the words "kill them", which Gardner claimed in court was a slang youth expression meaning "f*** them" or being particularly "p***sed off by individuals" but was not an instruction to have anyone killed.

A jury in the original case in November could not reach a majority decision on whether the defendants had conspired to kill the witnesses but acquitted them on the sixth charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Before deciding whether to order a re-trial, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves listened to a debate from defence lawyers John Perry QC and Victoria Pearman, representing Mr. Durrant and Mr. Gardner respectively, and Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney.

Mr. Perry argued the six original counts were inextricably linked and the fact that the jury had decided the men had not tried to pervert the course of justice meant, by implication, they had not conspired to kill the men either.

He said it would be an "abuse of court procedure" to bring the men back to court for another trial on those matters.

Mr. Perry said the Prosecution was trying to have a "second bite at the cherry" by bringing the men to court again, and said: "It puts the defendants at risk of conviction for facts they have already been acquitted on."

He underlined his reasoning by reading from a pre-trial exchange, in which Mr. Justice Greaves had asked prosecutor Mr. Mahoney if the charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice was an alternative to the five individual conspiracy to kill counts, to which Mr. Mahoney had said: "That's one way of looking at it."

For the Prosecution, Mr. Mahoney argued the men had failed to satisfy a jury that they had not wanted to kill the five witnesses and therefore should be re-tried.

But Mr. Justice Greaves said the only way the men could have been trying to pervert the course of justice was by conspiring to have the witnesses killed.

As a jury had decided the defendants had not had tried to pervert the course of justice then that implied they had not intended to have the witnesses killed.

Ruling out any retrial of the men, and discharging them from the court on the conspiracy to kill matters, Mr. Justice Greaves said the charge of perverting the course of justice ? to which they had been cleared by a jury ? "encapsulated" the five individual conspiracy to kill charges.

"The jury could only have arrived at that decision if the defendants did not conspire to kill or intend to kill the witnesses," he said.

Leaving the courtroom Mr. Durrant, of Ord Road, Warwick, said: "I'm relieved it is all over."