Woman juror fell for policeman... and nearly halted trial

A JUROR threatened to derail the multi-million pound trial after falling for a good-looking counter-terrorism police officer involved in the case.

The judge, Mr Justice Globe, faced calls to abort the trial when the woman’s interest in Detective Sergeant Ryan Chambers was discovered days before the jury was sent out.

The officer was overheard joking about a young female juror fancying him by a Guardian reporter, but he failed to recognise the looming danger to the case.

The reporter’s inquiries sparked a court investigation, which revealed that one of the jurors had found Mr Chambers ‘very attractive’ and another juror asked if he was single on her behalf.

Defence barristers said the love-struck juror could find the defendants guilty just to please the officer.

After an urgent inquiry, with two court staff, prosecution and police to find out what had been going on, Mr Justice Globe decided to dismiss a woman from the jury panel who had acted as an ill-conceived ‘matchmaker’ by making inquiries on behalf of the smitten juror.

The woman juror admitted the attraction, but said she had no intention of taking it any further, saying that another juror ‘jokingly asked for me against my wishes’.