The police officer accused of assaulting former football star Dalian Atkinson before his death has been cleared.
PC Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith was on trial of attacking the former Premier League player as he was tasered and kicked to death by her police officer boyfriend PC Benjamin Monk.
Jurors deliberated for three hours before acquitting the woman, who struck Atkinson three times with a baton in 2016.
Monk was jailed last year for the ex-Aston Villa hero's manslaughter - but his partner denied acting unlawfully.
Bettley-Smith told her trial at Birmingham Crown Court that she was left “shaking from head to toe” and was sure she would have come to serious harm if Mr Atkinson had managed to get to his feet.
The 32-year-old told the jury she had used her baton lawfully as a last resort as she desperately tried to control Mr Atkinson, who she said was “actively resisting and trying to get up” at the scene in Meadow Close, Trench.
The court heard how she became “visibly upset” when informed about his death but insisted she had acted in “self-defence”.
Following the acquittal, the trial judge John Butterfield KC told the jury: “You leave the court with my real thanks.”
The officer made no comment to reporters as she left the building, 30 minutes after being told she was free to go.
Jurors heard Mr Atkinson, who had health issues including kidney failure, had been acting out of character and smashed a window at his father's home.
Monk zapped the 48-year-old with a stun-gun for 33 seconds before kicking him twice in the head and was jailed for eight years for manslaughter in June last year.
The court heard that she acted "unlawfully" when she struck Atkinson with her baton "with as much force as she could muster" while he lay on the ground after being tasered.
She may have acted "out of anger" or because she had been told by her partner Monk: "F*****g hit him, f***** g hit him", jurors were told.
But PC Bettley-Smith, of West Mercia Police, claims she used reasonable force at the time and acted in self-defence because she considered her life was in danger.
She said after the first taser cartridge was fired by PC Monk, he said to run and that is what they did.
PC Bettley-Smith said: "All of this happened in such a quick amount of time. It's hard to put into words all these years later, but it was terrifying. You have had a taser fail.
"It was a very frightening experience. I think in my interview I said my life flashed before my eyes and that is still to this day a good representation of how I felt," she said.
The grief-stricken girlfriend of Mr Atkinson claimed last year that he "was harassed for life" by police.
Karen Wright, 50, spoke out after Monk was convicted of manslaughter.
She told The Mirror: “Dee was just a gorgeous soul. He’s had life-long harassment from the police. He felt as though he was hounded by police.
"He was sick of police. He felt he was hounded.
“He was so caring. He would always run me a bath, he’d look after me. He made me feel like no other. He was so compassionate.
“I could never love anybody the way I loved Dee. I would have married him in a heartbeat.”
