THE jury in the trial of a headteacher accused of having underage sex with two schoolboys in the 1980s was sent home after failing to reach a verdict.

The panel of seven men and five women will reconvene tomorrow (June 23) at Teesside Crown Court and will be asked to continue its deliberations in the case of Anne Lakey.

Mrs Lakey, 55, from Stanley, County Durham, faces 13 counts of indecent assault on a boy of 13 or 14 and another boy aged 15 over a three-year period.

She has been suspended from her role as chief executive of the Durham Federation, in charge of two secondary schools, since the younger complainant sent an accusing email in December 2012.

Mrs Lakey - now married for the third time, and a mother-of-one - was a history and RE teacher at a school in Sunderland at the time of the alleged offences.

The jury was sent out on Friday, and has now spent seven hours spread over two days discussing the case against Mrs Lakey, of Oxhill Villas, Stanley.