A juror whose holiday helped lead to the collapse of a high-cost murder case has revealed that he warned the authorities twice before the trials started of his plans.

And he has given The Royal Gazette a July letter from the court registrar permitting him to be excused jury duty from October 13-21. The six-day trial of two Warwick men accused of the manslaughter of Jermaine (Red) Pitcher was aborted by Assistant Justice Archibald Warner after the trial dragged on beyond the travel deadline and defence lawyers blocked a bid to continue with just ten jurors.

One juror said that he should never have been selected from the jury pool at the start of the trial on October 2 after he showed his July letter and again stated his travel plans to the duty policemen at the court.

The man said: "I got called anyway. Then I found out it was a murder trial. I kind of wondered how they planned to finish it in eight days.

"The judge was made aware of this. And there was a guy wanting to leave on the 12th. He could have asked us to step down and selected two other people from the jury pool. There were 30 to 40 people in the room."

Because of the tight schedule the jury began to sit for longer hours but still ran out of time, said the 35-year-old businessman, who did not wish to be named.

He said: "I don't know what the judge was thinking. He asked me if my travel was flexible. I had already changed my ticket to go on the 17th. Then I was asked to change it again. I said it wasn't just up to me. There were other people travelling with me."

The juror said he needed time to make arrangements.

"The lawyers said we could proceed with a reduced number of jurors. We got sent out, when we came back it was all over.

"All the other jurors said the pair of us should not have been there. We should have been excused. If you have a big pool of people there why not use it?

"The way it was portrayed in the media was as if the jurors had just taken off, and left the case without any concern. But that's not really how it went. It wasn't the jurors fault. I gave notice, I stayed longer to get the case done. I did my civic duty.

He added: "It's such a waste of tax payers' money. I think it lies with the judge, he asked them (the lawyers) if they would finish within the time frame."

The juror, who said taking time off is difficult as he runs a small business with just two other staff, said other jurors had suffered.

"One of them was a taxi driver. If she's not on the road she's not making money.

"Then we had to do extra hours which was even harder for her. I think we are paid $50 a day for jury duty, you can't pay your bills with that."

Bar Association President Trevor Moniz said the aborted trial would have cost the taxpayer thousands of dollars.

He said the two jurors with holiday plans should have been excused, especially as one of them had already been given permission.

He said: "A whole lot of time and money was wasted. They went about it in the wrong way.

"People came from abroad to give evidence, air tickets would have been $500-1,000. They will probably be on daily expenses of about $300-500.

"Those witnesses have had to get time off to come here."

The case against Keniel Alfred Ingham, 28, resumes today. On Thursday, Jamal (Knolly) Robinson, 24, had a change of heart and changed his plea to guilty for his part in the death of Mr. Pitcher during a bloody brawl outside Champion's night club on February 27, 2000.