The jury in the trial of a 54-year-old man accused of multiple counts of rape and sexual assault against a child in Waterford has failed to reach a verdict on the majority of the charges.
The jury did find the man guilty of an incident of sexual assault at a residential address in Waterford between 1 January and 19 March 2005.
However, it failed to reach a verdict on 52 other counts after deliberating for over ten hours.
The man cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim.
His trial before Mr Justice Patrick McGrath and the jury at the Central Criminal Court in Waterford heard four days of evidence.
The jury of seven men and five women first retired to consider their verdict last Friday, and spent a total of ten hours and four minutes deliberating.
Earlier today, the judge said that a member of the jury had requested to raise an "issue" that had arisen in the jury room with him in private.
However, Mr Justice McGrath said this was not possible as he cannot inquire as to what happens in a jury room in any trial.
He said a jury room has a certain "seal of confidentiality" and that is "sacrosanct".
This afternoon, the judge confirmed with the jury that they remained "deadlocked" on reaching a majority verdict in respect of 52 of the 53 alleged charges.
The one charge the jury did reach a guilty verdict on was a split ten-two decision.
Mr Justice McGrath said it was not "infrequent" that juries cannot reach a decision in serious cases such as this one.
The judge said it was clear that the jury had put "a huge amount of thought and effort into deliberating" the matters that were put before them.
Mr Justice McGrath then thanked the jury for their service and excused them from jury duty for five years.
The outstanding charges are to be sent back to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for instructions and the matter will come back before the Central Criminal Court in Dublin on 18 May.
At that time, it is expected to be known whether or not the DPP will seek a retrial for the man to face the outstanding 52 charges.
