JURORS will return to court in the morning to resume their deliberations in the case of a former senior churchman accused of historic sexual abuse allegations.
The panel of seven men and five women were sent home overnight by Judge Christopher Prince, having failed to reach agreement on any of the seven counts facing defendant Granville Gibson, despite being told they could reach majority verdicts of 10 - 2, or 11 - 1, for the last half-hour of the day, at Durham Crown Court.
Earlier, when they initially retired to consider their verdicts, on the eighth day of the trial of the former Archdeacon of Auckland, they were asked to try to reach unanimous agreement.
The 80-year-old retired cleric, who now lives in Darlington, denies six counts of indecent assault and one further serious sexual offence, dating from the period when he was vicar at St Clare’s Church, in Newton Aycliffe, in the late 1970s and early eighties.
His accusers were, at the time, a young member of the congregation, an 18-year-old youth performing community service work at St Clare’s, and a novice churchman.
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