Despite deliberating for more than eight hours, a Dunedin jury was unable to reach agreement on Friday on all charges against a 24-year-old Christchurch man accused of violence against his former partner.
Jurors found Prashnil Praneet "Jimmy" Singh guilty on three counts, not guilty on one, and told District Court judge E.P. Paul, of Auckland, they were unable to reach agreement on two other charges.
Singh had denied all six charges, which related to three alleged incidents in Christchurch in June last year involving his former partner, Hope Roberts.
A District Court trial begin in Dunedin on Thursday morning. Five witnesses gave evidence on Thursday, and counsel and the judge summed up before the jury retired at 12.40pm on Friday.
Returning at 9pm, the foreman said the jurors were unable to reach unanimous or 11-1 decisions on two charges - that Singh assaulted Ms Roberts on June 6 by slapping her on the head and assaulted her the same day using a knife as a weapon.
In an 11-1 decision, the jury found Singh not guilty of assaulting Ms Roberts on June 7 using an iron bar as a weapon.
Jurors found him guilty of assaulting her by slapping her about the head on June 7, of assaulting her by punching her in the head on June 7 and of assaulting her by strangling her while in a vehicle on June 7.
The guilty verdicts were all 11-1 decisions, the foreman said.
Judge Paul said it was often the shortest trials which gave juries the greatest consideration "and you have clearly given this trial great consideration". It would be up to the Crown Solicitor to decide whether Singh would be retried on the two charges on which the jury had been unable to reach agreement, he said.
He convicted Singh on three charges and remanded him on bail to appear in the Christchurch District Court on November 4.
At that time, the Crown would say whether it proposed to retry him, Judge Paul said. If it chose not to, Singh would be remanded for sentencing.
Kathy Basire appeared for the Crown and Bryan Green for Singh.
