Overview
- Jurors were discharged on Friday after raising confidential concerns during deliberations and Mr Justice Hilliard declared the trial collapsed, with a retrial listed to start on 8 February next year.
- The two defendants, 25-year-old Rico Gedel and 44-year-old Samuel Dodsworth, remain formally accused of murder and of possessing a makeshift blade in HMP Wakefield.
- At the aborted trial prosecutors argued Gedel carried out the fatal stabbing and that Dodsworth knew about the planned attack and aided Gedel by disposing of the weapon while both men denied joint intent.
- Courts heard CCTV and a prison officer’s bodycam, notes threatening Watkins the day before his death, and pathology evidence on the fatal injuries, all of which will be re-examined at retrial.
- The judge said details of the jurors’ concerns cannot be disclosed because deliberations are confidential and the collapse raises questions about trial integrity and the protection of high‑profile vulnerable inmates in custody.