THE jury was still out today in the case of four Polish men on trial for a gang attack on a deaf woman in a York graveyard.

The four men, all in their 20s and of Polish origin, stand accused of raping the 36-year-old woman in the grounds of St Martin's Church, St Martin's Lane, Micklegate, after a night out on November 13 last year.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall, QC, sitting at Leeds Crown Court yesterday, adjourned the case until today after a jury of five women and seven men failed to return a verdict in just over three-and-a-half hours.

Summing up, he told the jury how the woman had been approached by 23-year-old Marcin Legowski in Reflex Bar, on Micklegate, where she was drinking with friends.

Judge Durham Hall said the woman had followed Legowski outside. He led her into the churchyard where he attacked her with three other men joining in. Reading from her evidence, he said: "Sex wasn't even on my mind. I wanted to know why this guy was behaving in this way. I didn't understand. I didn't give off any signals. It was dark in the churchyard. I was trying to prevent them. I couldn't see their faces. They came at me one after the other. When I tried to look up they pushed my head down."

Legowski, Dominik Knoblauch, 22, and Cezary Krasnopolski, 26, all of Lincoln Road, off Leeman Road, York, and 23-year-old Janusz Rucinski, of no fixed address, have all admitted having sex with the woman.

But they said it was consensual and deny rape.