A trial involving Reds' owner and former iSoft boss Patrick Cryne has once again collapsed.

 

The retrial of Timothy Whiston, 45, and fellow executives Stephen Graham,49, and John Whelan, 46, who are accused of forging a multimillion euro contract to supply the Health Service Executive (HSE) in order to mislead investors, has been discharged by the judge.

 

The three, along with Barnsley FC owner Cryne, 62, are said to have deliberately included revenue from software contracts with the Irish health system, which had yet to be received, in the published accounts of healthcare provider iSoft - transforming losses into profit.

 

Cryne was excused from legal proceedings due to ill health but Whiston, Graham and Whelan have been on trial since April at Southwark Crown Court in London, accused of making false statements to the markets about their firm.

 

But the latest three month trial collapsed after Judge Anthony Leonard QC discharged the jury for reasons which cannot be reported.

 

Prosecutors are now considering whether to ask for a third trial.

 

The drama comes after more than three years of legal wrangling. The former directors, including Cryne, stood trial last year, but the jury failed to reach a verdict after a costly three-and-a-half month trial.

 

The collapse of this retrial comes after months of hearings, just as barristers were preparing to make their closing speeches.

 

The case centres of claims the directors deliberately lied about winning a major contract to supply information systems to Irish Hospital Information Systems in October 2003.

 

ISoft, based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, was sold to Australian software firm IBA Health after a take-over in October 2007.

 

Graham, of Knutsford, Cheshire; Whiston, of Lymme, Cheshire; and Whelan, of Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, all deny conspiracy to make misleading statements or forecasts, contrary to section 397 (1) (a) and (2) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, and section one of the Criminal Law Act 1977.