The judge did accept a majority verdict - but only two jurors were unwilling to acquit.

The trouble is that the evidence had been so muddied that a conscientious juror could have been been likley to think that, though Harwood was a thug, and his violent behaviour was probably the cause of Tomlinson's death, there was still a reasonable doubt that the cause of death might have been by a heart attack that coincided with the attack, and that the stress that brought that about was caused by a number of other factors on that day in addition to Harwood's behaviour,

"Probably guilty" is not the same as "beyond a reasonable doubt".