Juror jailed after web search halts murder trial

Paul Richards, 65, was jailed at Newport Crown Court on Friday

A juror who collapsed a murder trial after doing his own research on the internet has been jailed for four months.

Paul Richards, 65, of Pentrebane Drive, St Fagans, Cardiff, had been selected to be a juror in a trial of three people relating to a man's murder in Treforest, near Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, in December 2023.

Newport Crown Court heard Richards had sworn an oath, and the jury had been given directions by the trial judge not to carry out their own research into the case.

About a week into the trial Richards, while in the jury room, was overheard by an usher telling other jurors about joint enterprise murder.

As a result, the jury had to be discharged and new jurors selected.

Richards' phone was seized for examination, and he admitted he had found a newspaper article from the Guardian newspaper on the topic.

In September 2024, Kieran Carter, 23, from Birmingham was found guilty of murdering Daniel Rae, 30, over a drug debt after a new jury was selected for a trial at Cardiff Crown Court.

Two other people received suspended sentences for offences in connection with the case.

Richards had previously pleaded guilty to being a juror conducting unauthorised research and of being a juror disclosing prohibited information to other jury members.

Ruth Smith, mitigating, said Richards had taken his jury service "very seriously" and struggled with some of the legal concepts in the case.

"He is deeply ashamed of his behaviour," she said.

"It is a very sad set of circumstances that sees a 65-year-old man before the court who has previously led an exemplary life."

Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke described Richards' actions as a "flagrant disobedience of the court's directions".

"Had the usher not inadvertently happened upon you, it may be that this would never have come to light, and the verdicts of the jury of which you were a member could have been returned on the basis of a misunderstanding of the law on joint enterprise, or other improper considerations," she said.

"I accept you were not motivated by malice, and that the responsibility of being a juror, particularly in such a serious case, weighed heavily upon you.

"But there are very good reasons why people are told not to undertake their own research."