A trial date for church deacon Donovan Jones, 47, and his teenage co-accused on human trafficking charges was abandoned in the Home Circuit Court as the court was told at the last minute that an attorney was overlooked during the file-serving process.

The Crown and the other three attorneys were in the process of agreeing on a June trial date on Friday when attorney Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas informed the court that she has not been served with the files outlining the allegations against her client, James Rogers.

The Crown apologised to Haughton-Cardenas, but the defence counsel said that she was partly to blame because of her no-show at most of the mention dates.
A May 18 mention date was set for the documents to be served.

Charged along with Jones and Rogers, 18, on five counts of human trafficking are 18-year-old Shamar Morgan and a juvenile. The accused are all on bail.

The four were originally slapped with sexual assault charges early last year based on allegations that Jones - who was hired to transport a 13-year-old girl from school - supervised her assault by the young men over several weeks between April and May 2006.

Those charges were, however, dropped and replaced by the current charges when the case was transferred from the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate's Court to the Circuit Court in September 2006.

Rogers is alleged to have videotaped the sexual assaults, which took place in Jones' vehicle.

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