JOAQUIM Da Cunha moved to this country to make a better life for himself but lost everything when he was jailed for 10 months for a crime he didn't commit.

Mr Da Cunha, 30, has been left bitter and confused by the English legal system he feels let him down and left him penniless and sleeping rough on the streets of Trowbridge.

The factory worker was last week found not guilty of helping Hugo Quintas cover up the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Hayley Richards, but now faces having to rebuild his shattered life.

He said: "I am not guilty. I am a free man but I have lost everything. I have nothing. I have no job, nowhere to live, no money. "I stay ten months innocent in prison. It is very hard. Then after ten months they say go home and that is it. No-one helps me. "I have never before asked for anything. I had a job. I had a life. I never expected the police to come to arrest me. This system is wrong."

Mr Da Cunha was accused of helping Quintas, last week sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in jail for murder, by washing his bloodied clothing and helping him flee the country. A jury at Bristol Crown Court last week unanimously cleared him of all charges but he said he was left living in fear of retaliation.

He said this fear led him to leave the house he had been staying in with a family member and her young children to sleep rough in Trowbridge. He said he had no idea Quintas had killed his girlfriend until the police arrived looking for him the day after the murder.

"I feel so sorry for Hayley's family. Hugo lied and lied. He should have got longer, he killed a girl and she was pregnant. I was in court and I saw he had no feelings for what happened. "He has not apologised he just said it was Hayley's fault. He accepts he killed her but there are no feelings. He doesn't care."

He said Quintas arrived at the Seymour Court home the pair had shared for six months covered in blood and said he had been in a fight. Mr Da Cunha helped his friend clean up and then cleaned the house.

The next morning he travelled to Bristol Airport with his friend to see him off on a flight back to Portugal, which was booked before the killing took place. He said if one of them was going back to their home country the other would always travel to the airport as well to see them off.

He said on the train to Bristol, Quintas showed no sign of the brutal act he had just committed and behaved perfectly normally.

"I never believed he did it until he said so in court. "He has lied and lied and lied about her and about me and I feel so angry with him."

Mr Da Cunha spent the week after the end of the trial last Wednesday trying to get the financial help he needed to return to his hometown of Guimarges and his family in Portugal.

On Tuesday, with the help of his family, social services and the police, he got a flight to Portugal, leaving the country he had made his home for the past three years.