A MURDER charge against a man accused of killing a Burnley student has been dropped by prosecutors.

Police arrested David Alder, 39, just over a week after David Brown, who was originally from Burnley, was found stabbed to death outside his home in Chorlton Road, Hulme.

Alder, of no fixed address, has appeared before Manchester magistrates and later the city's Minshull Street Crown Court charged with the 24-year-old's September 21 murder.

But prosecutors decided to drop the murder charge after new evidence emerged which meant there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.' The Crown Prosecution Service have informed the family of their decision.

The development emerged after Alder, formerly of Osprey Court, Trafford, appeared before the Minshull Street court charged with an unrelated robbery on a woman in Manchester on September 6 last year.

He will face a trial on that charge on April 14 - but the murder case, which is unconnected to the robbery allegation, is not now proceeding.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman confirmed that the investigation had been dropped against Alder, after detectives and the Crown Prosecution Service had reviewed the case.

Police spokesman Sarah Chapman also confirmed that inquiries involving a second man, arrested in early December in relation to the David Brown enquiry, were still ongoing.

"The 40-year-old man who was arrested in December is due to answer his bail on February 12," she added last night.

A spokesperson for the CPS said: "We have received new evidence which we have now reviewed.

"And as a result we decided to discontinue the prosecution because there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.

"We have written to Mr Brown's family and they are aware we have decided to discontinue the case."

David, who went to St Stephen's Primary School, Burnley, Mansfield High School, Brierfield, and then Burnley College, was found dead outside the door to his flat at 7.30am on Friday 21 September.

He had recently quit his job to realise his dream of teaching English in Spain and was due to start a four-year degree in Spanish at Manchester Metropolitan University.

His mother Sylvia Stansfield, 51, lives in Laburnum Close, while his father Peter, is from Hollingreave Road, and sister Zoe Brown, 29, is from Piccadilly Road, all Burnley, David had moved to Manchester four years ago and had been on a night out in the city before he began to walk home to his Hulme flat at around 2.30am. His body was discovered outside his building at 7.30am.

Police have not issued any fresh appeals in relation to the inquiry.