THE TRIAL of Canon John Hervé, incumbent of St Agatha’s, Stratford Road, Sparkbrook, in Birmingham, collapsed at Warwick Crown Court last month when the prosecution offered no evidence against him.

Canon Hervé had pleaded not guilty to three charges of indecently assaulting an 11-year-old boy in the early 1990s. He also denied six further counts. He had been suspended from his post, where he had been incumbent for 16 years, after his arrest in January 2006 (News, 27 January 2006).

The Birmingham Mail reported that the judge had entered not-guilty verdicts on all the charges. The prosecution had failed to offer any evidence after the first complainant refused to come to court to testify, and the second complainant’s testimony was expected to be inconsistent with what he had told the police. Rex Tedd, QC, defending, said: “This man has always denied any guilt whatsoever. I would not want anyone to think he was leaving this court with any lingering cloud over his head.”

The Archdeacon of Birmingham, the Ven. Hayward Osborne, said in a statement read out in the parish: “The past two years have understandably been a period of immense strain. . . We are disturbed that the legal processes took this long for the case to be brought to trial.”