The trial of a policeman accused of stealing money from a fundraising event has been stopped.
PC Pat Lane, 35, denied a theft charge when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court and the prosecution was coming to the end of its case when trial Judge Gareth Hawkesworth discharged the jury from returning a verdict.
The judge's decision came following legal submissions by the officer's defence barrister, Keir Monteith.
A fresh trial has been scheduled to take place at Norwich Crown Court in September. Lane, of Witton Wood Lane, Frinton, was granted bail until the new trial.
He denies stealing a quantity of money between January 1997 and March last year following an event to raise money for a cancer charity.
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