Justin Lee Collins harassment trial jury sent home after failing to reach verdict

The panel of nine women and three men were asked to come into St Albans Crown Court for a rare weekend sitting yesterday so that Judge John Plumstead could finish his summing-up in Collins’s case.

It is believed there may be problems with juror availability next week and Judge Plumstead was keen to retire jurors as soon as possible.

Long-haired Collins, who appeared in court dressed in a checked shirt, pair of jeans and a dark blazer, denies harassing his former partner Anna Larke.

During his ten-day trial the court heard details of the couple’s tempestuous relationship in which they frequently fell out and argued.

Larke, 38, a video games public relations worker, claimed Collins subjected her to various levels of emotional and domestic abuse.

She alleged the former comic, also 38, made her write down in a Pukka pad all her previous sexual encounters, regardless of how graphic.

The court heard he did not want to write the details down but Larke dictated them to him and he believed it may have been a form of catharsis for her.

Collins, of Kew, south-west London, who made a name for himself with Channel 4’s The Friday Night Project, denied the charge of harassment and said recovering alcoholic Larke, who moved in with him in January 2011, was obsessive, jealous and possessive and would send him a “barrage” of text messages wanting to know where he was and who he was with.

The pair met at a corporate event in 2006 and began an affair in 2007 to 2008 before splitting up. The relationship resumed at the end of 2010  after the defendant’s marriage to his wife Karen, the mother of his sons Archie, seven, and Harvey, four, broke down.

Collins and Larke lived together from January to July last year in a deeply troubled relationship as she tried to overcome alcoholism, the court has heard.

Collins is accused of making her come off social networking websites, sleep facing him and throw away DVDs because they featured actors she found attractive. He denied all those claims and also denied making death threats against her.

Collins said the seven-month relationship with Larke was “absolute hell”.

“I thought she loved me and was crazy about me,” he said. “But it turned out only the second part was true.”

He denied attacking her in any way, saying he had never hit anyone in his life.

Collins told the court he had only ever slapped Larke to calm her down when she was self-harming, which he claimed she did, once gouging her wrists and threatening to commit suicide.

Larke, who gave evidence from behind a screen, has claimed Collins attacked her in their Miami hotel room in March 2011. She said she had not shown her doctor her bruises because she did not want to get him into trouble.

The jury will return to St Albans Crown Court at 10am today to continue deliberations.