THE jury in the trial of a triple murder charge doctor has been told by a judge to feel under no pressure of time when it retires to consider its verdicts.

Mr Justice Forbes said he would finish his summing up in the case of Dr Howard Martin later today, but told the jury at Teesside Crown Court that he would not send them out, instead he would do so on Monday.

The judge said: "It would not be appropriate to ask you to retire at that stage to consider your verdicts in such a difficult, worrying and tragic case as this.

"I feel it is very important that when you do so you should feel under no pressure of time."

Dr Martin, 71, a retired former County Durham GP, now of Gwynedd, North Wales, has pleaded not guilty to killing 74-year-old cancer sufferer Harry Gittins, of Newton Aycliffe, by administering a lethal dose of morphine.

He denies the same charge relating to 59-year-old Frank Moss, of Eldon, Bishop Auckland, who had lung cancer, and Stanley Wheldon, 74, of Coundon Grange, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

The deaths of the three men occurred between March 2003 and January last year.