According to the Evening Times account, Goldie dropped the cosh and then Ali fired a second shot, this time hitting his chest. It's hard to tell, but it sounds like Goldie surrendered and disarmed himself, and then Ali tried to kill him.

If it's true that Goldie was not charged with anything, it probably means he was never a real threat. So Ali's response was disproportionate.

Ali has admitted guilt. Maybe he was badly advised and would have been acquitted had he denied it, I don't know.

Generally with news reports, the more you know about the subject the more wrong they are. I'd be reluctant to make any judgements at this distance. It seems to me that the reports are written precisely to raise the kind of ire we are seeing in this thread. They like to provoke a reaction from their readers. So they minimise or miss out details in order to make reasonable decisions seem unreasonable.