THE judge in the trial of Tracie Andrews sent the jury to an hotel for the night after they failed to reach a unanimous verdict in their first four hours of deliberation yesterday.
THE judge in the trial of Tracie Andrews sent the jury to an hotel for the night after they failed to reach a unanimous verdict in their first four hours of deliberation yesterday.
Miss Andrews, 28, who denies murdering her fiancé, Lee Harvey, by stabbing him 30 times with a penknife, has been on trial at Birmingham Crown Court for four weeks. She told the court that Mr Harvey, 25, was killed by a man during a road-rage incident in December at Alvechurch, Hereford and Worcester.
The jury of nine women and three men were asked to retire to consider their verdict at 1.15pm yesterday after Mr Justice Buckley spent almost three hours summing up the case. Jury members were told that it was their duty to put the publicity surrounding the case firmly out of their minds and concentrate solely on the evidence.
The jurors were also given a direction to consider the issue of provocation if they were sure that Miss Andrews killed Mr Harvey despite the fact that neither prosecution nor defence had raised the issue.