Jury's questions force retrial for magistrate

A MAGISTRATE accused of fraud and theft will have to face a retrial next year after a jury at Leeds Crown Court was yesterday discharged from reaching verdicts in her case.

The six man, six woman jury had been deliberating verdicts in the trial of Salima Hafejee for more than a day when legal difficulties arose after they posed a couple of questions.

Hafejee, 44, of Whitechapel Road, Cleckheaton, denies two charges of fraud and one of theft in 2007 relating to a charitable organisation, the Ali Academy in Bradford, in which she was involved.

It is alleged she used 1,400 of the organisation’s money to pay for railings and gates at her former home in Bradford and covering it up by pretending work was done on the charity’s headquarters and also allegedly forging an end-of-project report enabling a grant to remain in the accounts.

Discharging the jury, Judge Jennifer Kershaw QC apologised to them for the situation which had arisen.

She said one of the questions related to an agreed fact about the organisation’s building in Nessfield Street, Bradford, and as a result of the inquiries about that it now emerged there was a dispute between the prosecution and defence over what was agreed about the state of the building which was central to one of the issues they were considering.

That needed to be discussed which could not be done at the stage of the trial reached. In addition, the judge said she had summed up the evidence on the basis as she understood it and that could “not be put right” at such a late stage.

A retrial was fixed for March next year.