Hung jury after Nicholas James Glass pleaded not guilty to rape

A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in the trial of a Hervey Bay man charged with two counts of raping a child.

A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in a trial in Hervey Bay.

A jury has been unable to reach a verdict in a trial in which a man pleaded not guilty to two counts of raping a child.

Nicholas James Glass, 31, pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, with the trial heard before a jury and Judge Deborah Richards in Hervey Bay District Court this week.

On Tuesday, the court heard testimony from the child’s grandmother, to whom the alleged offending was disclosed, a school chaplain and an investigating police officer, with the child’s prerecorded testimony to be played before the jury in the afternoon.

On Thursday, after two days of testimony prosecution and defence delivered their closing statements before the jury retired to consider a verdict.

On Friday, the jury asked to re-watch the child’s prerecorded testimony.

But on Friday afternoon no decision could be reached as the jury returned a hung verdict and were discharged.

It came after a juror admitted to googling the name of Mr Glass.

On Tuesday, Judge Richards said she had been informed by one of the jurors that they had googled Mr Glass’s name before the start of the trial on Monday night.

That was before the jury was selected and empaneled on Tuesday and told by Judge Richards not to do any outside research of their own during the trial.

Mr Glass’s defence lawyer said after googling Mr Glass himself, he could not see anything that could bias the jury among the search results.

Addressing the jury, Judge Richards explained what had happened and thanked the juror for “being so honest”.

“Obviously it would be better if you hadn’t, but you didn’t know, so that can’t be helped,” she said.

“If you could just remember not to google anybody else during the trial, that’s fine.

“But thanks for bringing it our attention, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

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Originally published as Hung jury after Nicholas James Glass pleaded not guilty to rape