The great uneducated British public

A woman to face a retrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict and showed “fundamental deficits of understanding” of her case

The eight women and four men on the jury at Southwark Crown Court in London were discharged after telling the judge that it was “highly unlikely” they would ever reach agreement on whether or not 'Miss Pryce' was guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Miss Pryce, who took speeding points on behalf of her ex-husband Chris Huhne, the former energy secretary, will now face a new trial before a different jury starting on Monday.

The jury reached deadlock after sending the judge three separate notes containing 10 questions that suggested they were “struggling” with the most “basic concept” of trial by jury.

They included a question about whether they could reach a verdict based on something that was not presented in court, and whether the defendant’s “religious conviction” to follow her wedding vows of obeying her then husband would be reason enough to acquit her of committing a crime with him.

Mr Justice Sweeney said he had “never come across” such a response from a jury in nearly 30 years of working in criminal courts.

The judge had given the jury lengthy verbal and written directions about the meaning of marital coercion before they retired to consider their verdict last Thursday, but on Tuesday afternoon the notes were passed to the judge with the 10 questions.

One asked the judge to define “beyond reasonable doubt”,

The judge replied it mean beyond reasonable doubt”,

 Another asked if they could “speculate” on information not presented in evidence.

The jurors are probably of an age to have  been educated in the Blair year of Government, when
his mantra was Edaucation, Education, Education.