An Old Bailey trial collapsed today (Thurs) after

An Old Bailey trial collapsed today (Thurs) after it emerged that one of the jurors could not understand the evidence more than a week after the case began.

The five-day witness nobbling trial of motorbike dealer Leslie Card is estimated to have cost taxpayers pnds stlg 150,000.

The Judge, Mr Recorder Douglas Day, QC, received a note stating the jurors’ concerns after the jury had been deliberating for two hours.

‘I have had a note regarding one particular person amongst your number indicating that Mr Card is not having his case considered properly by the jurors.

‘One juror hasn’t been able to take part in any full way in the discussion.

‘It is a basic principle of criminal justice that a person facing a charge is entitled to have his case considered by 12 people who understand the evidence and nature of the case.

‘I don’t have any alternative but discharging this case.

That I now do.

There will have to be a retrial,’ the judge added.

On the first day of the trial, one of the jurors, a middle-aged woman, twice failed to read the oath from a card while she clutched a bible in her other hand.

Prompted by the court usher she then mumbled almost incoherently through each line of the declaration.

But no one raised any concerns at that stage and the trial began.

There was then a six-day gap in the evidence when the Old Bailey went into Easter recess.

Card, 46, was standing trial for his alleged part in a plot to stop Paul Ryan from giving evidence after he and his brother were viciously beaten up in April 1998.

Both men were hospitalised by the violent assault with Bernard Ryan ending up with a fractured skull.

When Liam Sheeran, 24, from Horley, Surrey was about to stand trial at Guildford Crown Court last November Mr Ryan, from Redhill, received an anonymous call from someone claiming to come from Moss Side.

The caller said he was acting ‘on behalf of the Sheeran family’ and told Mr Ryan to drop his evidence.

Mr Ryan, a computer engineer, was then telephoned by Liam Sheeran’s brother Kevin and told to meet him in the Mill House Restaurant near Horley on November 5.

But he went to police and Kevin Sheeran, 29, and Card were arrested moments after Mr Ryan was handed a pnds stlg 2,000 bribe by the bar for chucking the case.

Mr Ryan was wired for sound throughout the meeting and tapes of a three-way discussion in the bar have been played to the jury.

Card has denied any role in the intimidation plot and claims that he just gave Kevin Sheeran a lift on the day and took no part in the meeting.

Kevin Sheeran, of (1) Roffey Close, Horley, has admitted doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice and he will be sentenced later.

Card, a motorbike dealer from (12) Bracken Walk, Tonbridge, Kent, denies the same charge and now faces a retrial.

ends