Sana Muhammad crossbow death: Jury discharged by judge Published duration 29 April 2019

image caption Sana Muhammad, formerly known as Devi Unmathallegadoo, was nine months pregnant when she was killed

The jury has been discharged in the trial of a man accused of murdering his pregnant ex-wife with a crossbow.

Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo, 51, denied shooting his former wife Sana Muhammad at her home in Ilford, east London, on 12 November 2018.

Mrs Muhammad, 35, was nine months pregnant. Her son was delivered by Caesarean section and survived.

The Old Bailey jury was discharged for legal reasons and a retrial has been provisionally set for 4 November.

Mr Unmathallegadoo had also denied a charge of the attempted destruction of the unborn baby.

Jurors had deliberated for four days before Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC ordered that the case be re-tried by another jury.

During the trial, the court heard Mr Unmathallegadoo spent two hours moving two crossbows, bolts, a hammer, a knife in a homemade sheath, cable ties and duct tape into his ex-wife's garden shed.

image copyright PA image caption Sana Muhammad suffered a fatal injury in her east London home

When her new husband, Imtiaz Muhammad, took a box out to the shed, he found the defendant brandishing the crossbows, jurors heard.

Mrs Muhammad was shot and fatally injured on the stairs of her house, which prosecutor Peter Wright QC told the jury was a "deliberate and quite calculated act of revenge".

However, Mr Unmathallegadoo had told the court he fired the crossbow by accident and the weapon had been bought for a hunting trip in Mauritius.