Chris Kahui a free man 

Their deaths provoked an outcry but no one will be locked away for murdering three-month-old twins Chris and Cru Kahui.

Their father Chris Kahui, accused of killing his baby twins nearly two years ago, has been found not guilty.

The jury at the High Court in Auckland announced the verdict after just one hour and 20 minutes of deliberation.

The jury began its deliberations at 12.50pm on Thursday, and after having lunch they told the registrar they had reached a verdict at 2.10pm.

Kahui's huge family support networks that were there throughout the trial, broke down in tears, and held a prayer in the courtroom after the verdicts were delivered.

Kahui looked to the heavens as the weight was lifted off him and walked out of the court smiling with his two lawyers.

His family supported him through a huge media scrum which greeted him outside the court. He could be heard muttering over and over "I just want to go home."

His lawyer Lorraine Smith was tearful as the verdicts were read out.

She said there was far too much doubt for the jury to convict Chris Kahui, but the evidence against the twins' mother, Macsyna King stuck out like a sore thumb.

Despite the verdict this is a case that has no winners.

The Kahui family say they now want to regroup after an extremely difficult two and a half years.

"Two babies at the end of the day are still crying at the grave for justice and we hope justice will be done," says family spokesman Tom Ngapera.

South Auckland Police say they are not laying any further charges against anyone else, including King, over the deaths of the twins.

Twins Chris and Cru Kahui were just three months old when they were admitted to Auckland's Starship hospital with severe head injuries in June 2006.  The twins later died 14 hours apart from severe brain damage.

The Crown says the twin babies had been violently slammed against a hard surface.

The prosecution team argued that 23-year-old Kahui was a stressed-out father who snapped, killing his twins in the minutes he was alone with them in their nursery on the night of June 12, 2006.

One of the Crown's witnesses, Kahui's ex-girlfriend, said that he would "bottle things up" and then "really lose it".

The defence vilified King. It disputed the timing the twins received their injuries and argued that she most likely killed them.

A defence witness, whanau support worker Manaaki Poto, said that King handled one of the twins roughly while he was a newborn and had also seen King abusing the twins' father.

King also admitted to rarely visiting the twins at hospital after they were born 10 weeks premature.

However, she said she was not at home on the night of June 12. She told the court the first she knew they were seriously hurt was when she saw the look on the doctor's face in hospital.

The trial took a gruelling six weeks - the prosecution alone called 65 witnesses and the jury of seven men and five women had to consider 1,933 pieces of paper evidence.