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Jury discharged in baby death trial

A jury deliberating on a businessman charged with causing the death of a baby after his Mercedes hit a broken-down car on the M6 has been discharged after it failed to reach a verdict.

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Thomas Fryer, aged 31, must wait another two weeks before learning whether the Crown Prosecution Service will pursue the case.

His car ploughed into a Seat Leon which had come to a standstill in lane three near Hilton Services in Staffordshire .

Eleven-day-old Da'wood Hewitt, of Milton Road, Cannock, was airlifted to Birmingham Children's Hospital but died the following day. He was one of three children in the Seat but the only one seriously injured.

His mother Alicia Shaw had been struggling to get the Seat into fifth gear after switching to the third lane on the motorway and the car had come to a halt.

The accident happened on the southbound carriageway between junctions 11 at Cannock and 10a at Essington on the afternoon of May 26 last year.

Fryer, of Duncroft Road, Garretts Green, Birmingham, pleaded not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving.

The jury of nine women and three men had sat for just over four hours. A decision about a retrial will be made at Stafford Crown Court on August 22.

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