October 08, 2012

Blackmail trial jury to continue on Tuesday

By David Clarkson

After a day of deliberations, the jury in the High Court blackmail trial retired for the night and will continue considering its verdicts at 8.30am on Tuesday.

Justice Robert Dobson summed up from 8.30am today, on the sixth day of the trial in the High Court at Christchurch, and the jury began its deliberations before 10am.

It returned to court at 1.45pm to ask one question, and there was a longer than usual break for lunch because of a juror?s prior engagement, but at 5.15pm the jury decided it would break for the night.

Four people are on trial, charged over alleged threats that were made when $35,000 in cash went missing from where it had been buried inside a locked deer shed on a Nelson farm.