A jury has been discharged after being unable to reach a verdict in the manslaughter trial of a man accused of killing a toddler in the Hunter almost two decades ago.
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It means Cecil Patrick Kennedy will face a retrial over the 2005 death of 21-month-old Jordan Thompson at Singleton.
The jury retired to deliberate at about 3.30pm last Wednesday and was on Friday afternoon instructed to come to a majority verdict when it became clear a unanimous decision would not be forthcoming.
The jury was discharged without reaching a verdict just after 2pm on Monday.
Mr Kennedy, now 51, was arrested in September, 2021.
He pleaded not guilty to the alleged unlawful killing of Jordan and faced a trial that ran for several weeks in Sydney.
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The crown's case was that Mr Kennedy gave anti-depressants, which he had been prescribed, to the toddler.
The jury was told during the trial that traces of Endep were found in a blood sample later taken from Jordan and that police found the medication in Mr Kennedy's wardrobe.
The hung jury means that the majority of jurors were not able to accept any of several propositions by which they could have found Mr Kennedy guilty.
These included that he was legally responsible for the baby's death because he either committed an unlawful and dangerous act by giving him anti-depressants which caused his death, or which substantially caused his death by drowning (in the bath); or that he was criminally negligent because he administered a drug to him and left him in the bath unsupervised, knowing that could cause his death; or that he was criminally negligent when he left him in the bath unsupervised knowing that he was under the influence of a drug, or was unwell, causing his death by drowning.
