The third trial over the death of a former Moray woman whose remains were found in the garden of an Australian home two decades after she disappeared has dramatically collapsed.
Ronald Pennington, 85, had been on trial accused of the manslaughter of Cariad Anderson-Slater, who emigrated from Elgin in 1990 and vanished two years later.
The skeletal remains of the 42-year-old were found in the garden of Pennington’s former home in Perth, Western Australia, in 2011.
He was found guilty of her death after a trial the following year, but his conviction was quashed when a court of appeal found the judge had misdirected the jury.
He was then retried last year, but jurors failed to reach a verdict and the case was abandoned.
And now the third trial which started last week has been scrapped after a juror shared information about what happened in the two former trials – leaving the judge furious.
Pennington now faces the possibility of facing a fourth trial with a pre-trial conference scheduled for next month.
The juror is understood to have shown fellow jury members a phone message with the words “Guilty, raised an appeal, hung jury”.
Justice Michael Corboy told the Supreme Court of Western Australia he was “almost speechless with rage” over the actions of the juror involved, which led to the trial being discharged on Monday.
He said: “I’m extremely reluctant in these circumstances to discharge the jury but I feel I have no option.
“It is most regrettable. It is regrettable to everybody. It is regrettable to the state, it is regrettable to Mr Pennington, who’s 85 years of age, Ms MacEachen (Cariad Anderson-Slater’s mother) at the back of the court is visibly upset; understandably so.”
Ms Anderson-Slater’s mother travelled to Australia to give evidence in all three of the trials that have taken place so far.
Justice Corboy added: “Everybody, the state, Mr Pennington, Ms Anderson-Slater’s family, are entitled to a verdict in this matter one way or the other and I can’t begin to express how angry I am as to what has occurred.”
The jury of 14 men and women were told at the start of the trial that they were not to make inquiries about the circumstances of the retrial they were taking part in.
It is understood the juror at the centre of the allegation was questioned by Justice Corby in court and it was found that his girlfriend had looked up the previous trials online and shared information about it with him.
At least three other jurors are believed to have been present when he showed them a typed note on his mobile phone that described what had happened in the former trials.
The note, which is believed to have been shared during a break in the trial, is understood to have said something similar to “Guilty, raised an appeal. Hung jury”.
Earlier the court heard that Pennington, then aged 63, had invited Mrs Anderson-Slater and her husband David Slater to dinner on the night of her disappearance.
When the couple returned home they argued about her drinking and the last time Mr Slater saw his wife alive was when she went to a neighbour’s house.
Prosecutor Justin Whalley told the court that Mrs Anderson-Slater then caught a taxi to Pennington’s house and “disappeared into thin air”.
Pennington left Western Australia soon after she vanished and it her remains were found by workers digging the garden of his former home years later.
Pennington, was extradited from Tasmania to face trial.
The matter will now return to the Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court in Perth, Western Australia, for a pre-trial conference on August 21.
Unless Australian state prosecutors decide not to continue with the matter, the process of scheduling a new trial date will commence once again.