A juror at the Hillsborough inquests has been discharged, reducing the jury to nine.
The woman was discharged on medical grounds on Thursday, just a day after the jury first went out to begin considering its verdicts following more than two years of hearings into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans in the 1989 football stadium disaster.
The jury began with a panel of 11 in March 2014, but one man was also discharged on similar grounds in February 2015.
The coroner, Sir John Goldring, told the remaining jurors that the nine of them – six women and three men – would now consider the case.
He told them: “In the light of all the information I have had, I have decided to discharge juror number four from continuing to serve on the jury. She is not here now, she has formally been discharged, so you will continue the case without her.
“The information I have had included a medical basis for her to be discharged.
“I should make this plain so that you will know, everyone, including the families, is aware of all the detail of what’s happened.”
He added: “We are conscious how difficult this has been for you. It’s not, if I may say so, been entirely easy for me or us.
“I’m confident you can put it all behind you now and deal with what is, after all, your real task, and that’s making your decisions.”
Sir John continued: “Members of the jury, I’m going to ask you now to retire, I’m confident we can put all this behind us and you can deal with the real task. Thank you for your patience, I’m sorry that you got, to some degree, sidetracked.”
The remaining jurors, who first retired at 2.05pm on Wednesday, are considering 14 key questions set out by Sir John in a 33-page questionnaire, including determining if police match commander Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield is responsible for the unlawful killing of the fans by gross negligence manslaughter.
Under rules governing inquests, hearings can continue with as few as seven jurors.
The inquests into Britain’s worst sporting disaster first began on March 31 2014, in a specially built courtroom in Warrington, Cheshire.
Dozens of relatives of the 96 victims have attended each of the more than 300 days the court has sat at Bridgewater Place on the town’s Birchwood Park business park.
On Wednesday, Sir John concluded his summing-up of the evidence which he first began in January, before making his final remarks to the jurors, telling them to put emotion aside and consider the case dispassionately on the evidence.