A High Court child-abuse trial was aborted when it was revealed Child, Youth and Family had failed to hand over 300 pages of documents to the police investigation.
Justice Paul Heath apologised to the jurors when he discharged them – after the case had been running for three days – following inquiries by the defendant’s lawyer that brought the existence of the files to light.
A second trial for the 61-year-old man, who has been charged with 42 counts of physical and sexual abuse of two girls in his care between 1994 and 2003, is unlikely to be heard this year.
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