{"id":501561,"date":"2026-02-24T19:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501561\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T19:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:31:15","slug":"geoffrey-john-guest-to-face-fresh-trial-after-cairns-district-court-jury-discharged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501561\/","title":{"rendered":"Geoffrey John Guest to face fresh trial after Cairns District Court jury discharged"},"content":{"rendered":"

A jury has been discharged less than a day into the trial of a 99-year-old former youth worker accused of historical child sex offences.<\/p>\n

On Monday Petford Youth Camp founder Geoffrey John Guest pleaded not guilty in the Cairns District Court to six child abuse charges related to alleged events dating back about half a century.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning Judge Tracy Fantin discharged the jury during the cross-examination of the trial’s first witness.<\/p>\n

“This witness was asked a direct question and \u2026 the answer he gave is inadmissible in this trial,” she told the jury before discharging them.<\/p>\n

“It is no fault of the witness.”<\/p>\n

The jury of six men, six women and two male reserves was sworn in yesterday.<\/p>\n

“The overwhelming consideration I have to decide is what is in the interest of justice to ensure the defendant receives a fair trial,” Judge Fantin said.<\/p>\n

“Trials can be unpredictable and sometimes things happen which are unexpected.”<\/p>\n

\"Formally<\/p>\n

The defence team of Tiffany Veschetti and Kelly Goodwin leaving District Court with Geoffrey John Guest after the trial was abandoned. (ABC Far North: Conor Byrne)<\/p>\n

Mr Guest pleaded not guilty to one count of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child under 16, four counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16 and one count of unlawful carnal knowledge of a child under 16.<\/p>\n

The court heard the alleged offences happened in Far North Queensland in the 1970s, when the complainant was a teenager.<\/p>\n

Judge Fantin told the court a new jury would be empanelled on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A jury has been discharged less than a day into the trial of a 99-year-old former youth worker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,252181,252182,252180,252184,252183,44,252179],"class_list":["post-501561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cairns-district-court","tag-geoffrey-guest-mistrial","tag-geoffrey-john-guest","tag-historical-child-abuse-case-cairns","tag-judge-tracy-fantin","tag-news","tag-petford-youth-camp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}