A family's nine-year wait for justice over the fatal bashing of a Sydney teenager continues after a judge acquitted two men of his murder.
Nikola Srbin, 18, was ambushed by up to 10 men in the courtyard of a Redfern unit complex in May 2013. He died three weeks later.
Two men associated with the Rebels bikie gang faced a judge-alone trial in the NSW Supreme Court over accusations they were part of the ambush plot and used a rubber mallet and a baseball bat to inflict fatal head blows.
The names and nicknames of the offenders and some of their associates cannot be published for legal reasons.
The Crown case primarily turned on the evidence of a man dubbed Witness A, who was intimately involved and somewhat caused the events leading to the fatal bashing, purportedly over a $400 drug debt.
Witness A, already serving time for manslaughter, said he identified Mr Srbin to the group and then saw the two men use the mallet and bat to beat the teenager.
But on Tuesday, the trial judge said he could not accept significant parts of the key Crown witness's evidence as honest or reliable. He was confident parts were exaggerated and other parts were lies.
While the judge said he may not be able to know why the witness told falsehoods, "I'm satisfied he did."
One rejected claim - that one of the accused murderers had earlier brandished an Uzi sub-machine gun - presented like the climactic scene of Scarface in which Al Pacino's character says "say hello to my little friend".
Despite what appeared a memorable moment, the witness failed to recall that part of his account at trial until the prosecutor made specific reference to what the witness had told an undercover police officer, the judge said.
Rather than a truthful tale, it seemed the witness had spun a yarn to the officer, the judge said.
The witness's "crocodile tears" for Mr Srbin were also called out after he claimed he had great concern for the teenager and tried to talk "the guys" out of the attack.
That flew in the face of earlier descriptions of the attack in which he appeared to delight in the teenager's smile being wiped once the large group of attackers appeared behind Witness A in the courtyard.
Shortly after Mr Srbin's death, the witness referred to the victim as "that little prick".
The evidence showed or suggested the concern for the victim was "reconstructed, at best", the judge said.
Other eyewitnesses called at trial recalled the group of men in the courtyard surrounding Mr Srbin but were unsure about weapons or the identities of those involved.
That left the judge unable to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused men inflicted the fatal blows or were part of the joint criminal enterprise to cause Mr Srbin grievous bodily harm.
One walked from the court on Tuesday, while the other remains in custody awaiting trial on other charges.
A third man who pleaded guilty to Mr Srbin's murder at a pre-trial hearing is due to be sentenced in 2023.
