by Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 01/98) - A hung jury in last week's sexual assault trial of Yellowknife businessman Bud Wayne Weaver may not be end of the case.

Weaver was facing two counts of sexual assault which allegedly occurred between 1983 and 1991. The women who filed the charges were between the ages of four and 15 at the time they claim the incidents occurred.

The decision to try Weaver again or drop the case rests with the Crown. A second trial is considered likely by some observers because of the unusual instructions given to the jury last week by visiting Justice L.R. Morin. He focused on segments of testimony and posed a number of questions to the jurors that cast doubt upon the testimony of the two complainants.

Morin asked whether it was likely that others wouldn't have overheard the girls' protests or noticed something out of the ordinary about their appearances. Further, he questioned the girls' continued relationship with Weaver after the alleged assaults.

One of the women had testified that Weaver's inappropriate touching had affected her all of her life.

Morin noted that the assaults had not actually occurred throughout her entire lifetime, so he repeated to the jury that the inappropriate touching only took place within a span of nine years.

After the jury was released, Crown prosecutor Brad Allison tried to clarify with Morin that his client had said she had been dealing with the adverse affects from the incidents all of her life.

The jury deliberated for a full day before it returned to the courtroom to announce it could not reach a unanimous verdict.