“Guilty, raised an appeal. Hung jury,” these were the words typed on a mobile phone that caused a third manslaughter trial of Ronald Leslie Pennington to be aborted earlier this week and left the judge "almost speechless with rage".
Mr Pennington, 84, faced the Supreme Court of Western Australia on Monday when the jury into the case was discharged because a juror obtained and shared information about the previous trials.
Mr Pennington was extradited from Tasmania to stand trial for the death of 41-year-old Cariad Anderson Slater who disappeared in July 1992 and her skeletal remains were found in 2011 in a backyard where Pennington used to live.
In a 2012 trial, Mr Pennington was convicted of her manslaughter, however the conviction was quashed when an appeal was launched and it was ruled that the trial judge had erred in his directions to the jury.
That second trial did not produce a result as the jury could not reach a verdict.
The matter was before Justice Michael Corboy on Monday when he was made aware by one of the jurors that some of the other jurors may have been discussing what had happened in the past trials.
According to the transcript of the proceedings, Justice Corboy told the court he was "almost speechless with rage" over the actions of the juror involved.
"I’m extremely reluctant in these circumstances to discharge the jury but I feel I have no option," he told the court.
"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-Sleter's mother] at the back of the court is visibly upset; understandably so."
Ms Anderson-Slater's daughter travelled to Australia to give evidence in all three of the trials that have taken place so far.
"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," Justice Corboy said.
The jury of 14 men and women had been given directions at the beginning of the trial that they were not to make inquiries about the circumstances of the retrial they were taking part in.
Fairfax Media understand the juror at the centre of the allegation was questioned by the Justice Corby in court and it was found that his girlfriend had researched the matter 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 happend in the first two cases.
The note, which is believed to have been shared during a break in the trial earlier that day, is understood to have said something similar to "Guilty, raised an appeal. Hung jury".
The transcript of the matter reveals that Justice Corboy considered questioning jury members so he could allow the case to continue if there were 10 jurors who had not been privy to the information.
But he eventually decided that even if this was ascertained, "real doubts" were likely to remain as to the extent to which the information had been communicated".
Once the jury left the court room the juror who had shared the information that caused the trial to be aborted was called into the court.
The transcript reveals that Justice Corboy spoke directly towards the man describing the "extraordinarily high" monetary cost of the trial as well as the "extraordinarily high emotional toll" on parties involved.
He told him: "You cannot imagine how angry I am at the moment as a result of what has occurred".
The matter will now return to the Supreme Court for a pre-trial conference on August 21.
Unless the state decides not to continue with the matter, the process of scheduling a new trial date will commence once again.
