face an unheard of fourth trial for the offence after a Supreme Court jury was unable to come to a verdict last night.

Victoria Pearman, the lawyer for Clifton Hopeton Morrison, said she questioned the fairness of yet another trial and said she was worried about how her client was coping with the trauma.

The jury of seven men and four women was dismissed at 8.30 p.m. after they were unable to come to a verdict following more than eight hours of deliberation.

Morrison, 39, who has been in custody since February 1999, will face what is believed to be an unprecedented fourth trial for the same offence, if Director of Public Prosecutions Khamisi Tokunbo decides to continue with the prosection.

Ms Pearman told The Royal Gazette last night: "A trial is always a strenuous experience. In this case, it is the third trial my client has had to endure, not including an attempted trial that never got off the ground.

"He has been in custody the entire time, and it now falls to the DPP to decide whether he is going to pursue yet another trial.

"I am very concerned about my client and question as to the overall fairness of bringing him before the courts for another time. He is distraught and disappointed.'' Crown counsel Larry Mussenden, who prosecuted the case, said: "It is a matter for the DPP.'' Morrison, a father of three from St. Ann's Parish, Jamaica, denies importing the liquid cocaine into Bermuda in two bottles of rum on February 6 1999. He also denies possessing and handling the drugs.

The legal saga has dragged on for 17 months following a series of twists and turns.

Morrison was found guilty in July last year and sentenced to 12 years, but the conviction was quashed after the Court of Appeal ruled that Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller misdirected the jury.

In March, the first re-trial was aborted halfway through when Ms Pearman and Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller suffered family bereavements.

In April, a third attempt at a trial was also abandoned when the pool of jurors was not large enough.

The jury, which was tied 7-4 throughout yesterday, heard Morrison, a travelling salesman, picked up the bottles from a Jamaican man he knew only as Jabba who asked him to take them to Bermuda.

Fourth trial Morrison said he had been paid by Jabba to come to the Island to collect some money Jabba was owed from a person in Somerset.

He said he asked Jabba what was in the bottles and for a receipt, but that Jabba did not have them. The seals were unbroken and he checked them against identical bottles in the duty-free shop in Montego Bay Airport, Jamaica.

Morrison said a Customs officer in Miami broke the seal of one bottle, poured the liquid onto his finger, then said he could continue.

Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller ordered Morrison back into custody last night to appear at the monthly arraignment session in the beginning of August.