A wealthy businessman was acquitted today of murdering his ten-week-old daughter.

The judge at Winchester Crown Court ordered the jury to find Mark Latta not guilty of killing his daughter Charlotte due to lack of evidence.

Mr Latta was accused of banging Charlotte's head and shaking her on December 2, 2001, while he fed her upstairs at the family home in Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire, leaving her with 32 fractures and extensive brain damage.

Mr Latta consistently denied causing her any injury and had broken down in tears as he described to the court how the child choked on her milk before falling unconscious in his arms.

Ordering the jury to find Mr Latta not guilty of murder, the judge said the prosecution had failed to prove that Mr Latta had deliberately harmed his daughter on the day she died, or what instrument had caused her injuries.

Mr Justice Geoffrey Grigson said: "That someone had abused Charlotte Latta is beyond doubt. She had suffered fractures to her bones.

"Whilst Mark Latta was one of those who could have inflicted these injuries there is absolutely no evidence that he did so. All the evidence is that he was a loving and caring father."

The judge had ordered not guilty verdicts to be returned earlier in the six-week trial on two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm.

Mr Justice Grigson said the medical evidence was vital to the case. "It is not simply that there is a clash of opinion. There is a dispute and a valid dispute on almost every aspect of the medical evidence.

"Even the most distinguished doctors can make errors in judgment," the judge told the jury.

In his evidence last week, Mr Latta said the family were preparing Sunday lunch at their home in Byron Close when he took his daughter upstairs to her bedroom to feed her.

He described how Charlotte had just been given a clean bill of health by her doctor after spending a week in hospital on an IV drip, with a tube inserted into her stomach through her nose.