Teen accused’s absence halts jury trial
A judge has decided not to put a teenager on trial in his absence on a robbery charge after he failed to turn up at the Christchurch Court House.
A jury was selected on Monday and the trial was delayed for a day but the police have been unable to find 19-year-old Jesse John Sanders in the meantime.
Christchurch District Court Judge Raoul Neave called the jury back into court today after hearing legal argument in closed court, and told them that he had been persuaded that going ahead with the trial without Sanders present “would not be a safe course of action”.
Sanders and his alleged co-offenders Sarah Louise Kelly, 23, and David Robert Crosswell, 43, are charged with robbery, and Kelly also faces two theft charges.
Kelly and Crosswell were present for the start of the trial on Monday and stood in the dock with a Corrections officer standing between them.
Judge Neave told the jury: “It may not have escaped your notice yesterday that when the charges were put, there were three accused but unless one of them was wearing a uniform, we only had two of them.”
He said Sanders “has chosen for reasons best known to himself, not to appear”.
He remanded the case to a pre-trial call-over on July 24 and said a further trial date would be set and the trial would go ahead “with Mr Sanders or without him”.
“I apologise for inconveniencing you,” Judge Neave told the jury, “but there is nothing much we can do about it.”
A warrant has been issued for Sanders’ arrest since he failed to attend a pre-trial call-over on June 26.
Category: Focus
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