Jury discharged without verdicts in ‘fraud’ trial of footballer Blair Turgott
Prosecutors were given a week to decide whether they want a retrial.
The jury trying a former Premier League footballer accused of gambling £16,000 using a pensioner’s stolen credit card has been discharged after failing to reach verdicts.
Ex-West Ham winger Blair Turgott, 23, is alleged to have carried out the scam at the Playboy casino in central London’s Park Lane on September 30 2016.
The card used by the former England under-19s player Turgott, who is from Bromley in Kent, had earlier been stolen from Peter Dixon, 85, by a fraudster posing as a bank employee, a court heard.
Turgott, who made one first-team appearance for the Hammers during their FA Cup defeat to Nottingham Forest in January 2014, claimed he was given the card and PIN number by a trusted friend, who owed him £16,000.
A jury of seven women and five men deliberated for five hours following a trial at Southwark Crown Court, but was discharged by the judge, Recorder Louis Weston, after failing to reach verdicts on charges of fraud and money laundering.
The judge gave prosecutors a week to decide whether to pursue a retrial of Turgott, who denies the charges.
