A juror who'd been set to help decide the fate of murder-accused Philip Polkinghorne has been discharged by the judge.
"As you know over the last day or so we've been trying to map the future progress of the trial," Justice Lang told the jury at the end of Wednesday's sitting at the High Court in Auckland.
"Now, of course, we're in the seventh week of the trial and so it's only natural that things are coming to the fore that you have to attend to in your personal lives," he said.
Justice Lang said it is likely Crown and defence lawyers will give their closing addresses early next week.
The judge said he was then expecting to sum up the weeks-long trial on around Tuesday or Wednesday.
He said one juror had important commitments that could not be changed.
"And we accept that," he told the jury.
"And what we don't ever want to do is have a juror or jury under stress to reach a verdict in a particular timeframe.
"The reality is then, if we sent you out on Wednesday then you would be thinking 'we have to get a verdict on Thursday'," he said.
"And that's exactly the kind of pressure we don't want to put on you."
The juror, unable to continue, was discharged.
"We will now carry on with a panel of 11, as we are able to do," Justice Lang said.
Polkinghorne, now 71, denies murdering his wife Pauline Hanna at their Auckland home at Easter 2021 and staging it to look like a suicide.
Prosecutors say he was caught in a web of other women, money trouble and meth use.
His defence says Hanna, who was 63, had depression for years, had talked about and attempted suicide before, and was working long hours in a high stress job.
Polkinghorne claims he woke to find his wife already dead.
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