A JURY has been discharged after failing to reach a verdict over a retired Warwickshire Police officer accused of stealing £113,000 from the force’s headquarters.
Former detective Paul Andrew Greaves is accused of stealing the cash from the evidence room at the force’s old base in Leek Wootton between 2009 and 2011.
The trial was heading into its sixth week when the jury of six men and six women at Birmingham Crown Court were unable to come to a decision and were given a majority direction by Judge Mark Wall QC
The cash was originally seized in 2009 during a drugs and firearms raid on a farm in Leicestershire.
But the bank notes went missing after the detective from Nottingham put the money in the lock-box in the force’s secure exhibit storeroom.
The loss of the money was only discovered nine months after the detective retired from the force, when it was due to be returned to its owners.
Prosecutors said 56-year-old Mr Greaves bank accounts show he paid off debts in the weeks after the money went missing.
But he claimed his cash windfall was due to a lucky streak on the horses.
The Crown Prosecution Service intends to seek a retrial.
Greaves was conditionally bailed to return to the court for a pre-trial hearing on July 9.
