Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

INUVIK (May 08/98) - A sexual assault trial of an Inuvik man this week had to be postponed after a CBC Radio story left an Inuvik NWT Supreme Court unable to put together a jury.

The trial of an Inuvik man that was supposed to have begun Monday had to be put off for several months after the CBC report, which aired several times the same day, detailed the accused man's long family connections to the area and portrayed him in a positive light.

The item also reported what his neighbors thought of him and even made note of the fact that his photograph had appeared in an Inuvialuit Regional Corporation publication.

IRC ofÞcials were not happy with the report, nor was the court. Every prospective juror summoned that day was asked whether they had heard the report.

Every person who had heard it was excused from jury duty and by the end of the day, not enough people were left to form a 12-person jury.

CBC North Radio executive producer Ian Hanna called the story an "accurate and timely" version of events, adding that it was examined by lawyers before it was aired, as is standard practice.