A MAN walked free from the High Court in Glasgow yesterday after a murder charge against him was found not proven. The verdict came less than a year after a separate murder charge of which he was also found not proven.

In the latest case, Frank McPhee, 50, had been accused of strangling and murdering bridegroom Christopher McGrory, 25, only two weeks after the wedding.

His co-accused, pit bull breeder Colin McKay, 29, had been the best man at the wedding. Mr McKay hid his face under a coat as he walked from the High Court in Glasgow. The charge that Mr McKay had also strangled Mr McGrory in the back of his Transit was found not proven.

Mr McPhee was hailed by a jubilant crowd of about 50 wellwishers as he walked from the court.

The jury was unaware that he had previous convictions for assault and robbery, firearms, and drugs. He was jailed in 1978 for five years; for another five years in 1986; and eight years for drugs in 1992. A jury cleared him in 1997 along with Neil Munro of stabbing and murdering Clydebank murderer William ''Worm'' Toye in his cell in Perth Prison.

Mr McPhee, of Guthrie Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, had been out of prison for three months when he was accused of murdering McGrory.

Advocate-depute Graham Bell QC asked the jury to find that both accused abducted Mr McGrory from stables in Lambhill, Glasgow, on September 23, 1997, and forced him into his van.

They allegedly frogmarched Mr McGrory, of Warren Walk, Lennoxtown, into the van and strangled him near Dougalston Golf course, near Milngavie.

But the jury by a majority found the charge not proven.

Police believed that Mr McGrory, formerly of Craigash Road, Milngavie, had been killed in a drug-dealing row.

The unemployed, powerfully built 6ft victim had lived well beyond his means.

He kept three horses and often flew back and forth to Dublin.

A fortnight before his death he flew Mr McKay, of Dykemuir Street, Balornock, Glasgow, and Mr McPhee with a crowd of friends to the Irish capital for his wedding to his 30-year-old bride, Anne Marie. After the wedding the couple honeymooned in Paris and later attended a baptism in Dublin before flying home to Glasgow.

Next day Mr McGrory vanished and his widow had to identify his body in the city police mortuary two days later.

Detectives believed that Mr McGrory's murderers believed he had brought back a large quantity of heroin and cocaine from Dublin. One said: ''His killers may have been trying to choke out of him the hiding place of the drugs and murdered him by mistake.''

Mrs McGrory told the jury that Mr McKay had been friends with her husband, but that after Mr McPhee appeared on the scene they ''grew apart''.

She gave evidence with her left arm in a sling where her husband's pit bull had attacked her after going crazy at a relative's funeral.

She said: ''My life is a nightmare. First my husband is murdered. Then his best man is accused of killing him.

''Then the dog savaged me and now no-one is to pay for Christopher's death. I am still receiving treatment at hospital every day for the dog bites on my arm.

''Christopher went with Colin McKay to Perth Prison to visit Frank McPhee before he came out of jail.''