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The cause of death of six-week-old baby Matthew Riley Baxter "remains a matter of speculation" after Justice David North acquitted Nicholas Aaron Baxter for manslaughter in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Mr Baxter, a former Australian soldier, was accused of killing his newborn son in Townsville almost a decade ago and jailed in 2017 after a jury found him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
The conviction was later overturned and a retrial was ordered by Queensland's Court of Appeal.
Justice North ordered Mr Baxter be tried by a judge sitting without a jury and said a charge of manslaughter required proof beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Baxter caused his son's death and said "proof to that standard is absent".