An Adelaide man accused of cutting the brake line on his ex-girlfriend's car more than a year after they broke up has been found not guilty of endangering her life.
The man's lawyer told the District Court the ex-girlfriend endangered her own life by continuing to drive when she realised her brakes were not working.
Paul Sharer, 28, stood trial charged with endangering the life of his former girlfriend in November 2017.
The couple met on the dating app Tinder in June 2016 and the woman ended the relationship about five months later.
The jury unanimously found Mr Sharer not guilty of the charge on Wednesday.
During the trial, prosecutor Julie-Anne Lake said Mr Sharer was "caught in the act" cutting the brake line by his ex-girlfriend's housemate who spotted him underneath the car about 11:00pm.
The court heard the woman noticed her brakes were not working when she reversed down the driveway to go to work the next morning about 4:30am.
It heard she drove to work slowly using the hand brake and reported the allegation to police the next day.
Woman 'irrational' to continue driving
Defence lawyer Scott Henchliffe QC argued his client was never lying underneath the car.
"The prosecution case is entirely circumstantial — no-one saw Mr Sharer cut the brake hose," he told the jury.
In his evidence, Mr Sharer told the court he was only outside his ex-girlfriend's house that night because he was driving past and saw someone "acting quite suspiciously" near her car.
The court heard he walked over to the car to make sure it had not been damaged.
Mr Henchliffe argued that the woman endangered her own life.
"To knowingly drive to work with brakes that didn't work, she actually intentionally endangered her own life, not to mention that of other road users," he said.
"The only endangering life that occurred was because she made the completely irrational and unpredictable decision to keep driving."
He told the jury the evidence had fallen short of proving his client's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
"He had no reason to commit this crime. He had no motive to endanger [her] life, and he simply didn't do that," he said.
"He was on good terms with her."
