A district court trial has been aborted after a defence lawyer involved received a text informing him he was a close contact of a person with Covid-19. 

The trial in Hamilton was just about to break for the morning adjournment on day two today when the lawyer received the text, he told Open Justice. 

"I'm in the middle of a judge-alone trial and at 11.24am I get a text and it's the health department saying that I had a close contact with somebody on the 4th February and that I'm to immediately isolate." 

He then got another text to say he would get a phone call from the Ministry of Health today. 

"I stood up and told the judge I've got a text, what do we do, am I supposed to go home? 

"And the judge said 'well, yes you are'. 

"There was a brief discussion and then we aborted the trial." 

The judge would now hold a teleconference on Friday to discuss where to from here, said the lawyer who did not want to be named. 

However, since receiving the text he had been fielding numerous calls from others in the courtroom with him this week and who had been in contact with him since last Friday asking what they are to do. 

"I don't know, I've had people ring me up and ask 'Am I to self-isolate' and I said I don't know. 

"It's not like we were real close. We all had masks on sitting there and nobody touched anybody and the judge was miles away sitting up the front of the court." 

He said he felt not only for his client but also the young complainant who had all been waiting a long time to get to the trial stage. 

"Everybody misses out, basically ... we'll have to see what happens." 

He was now having to self-isolate for 14 days from February 4. 

He was booked in to get a Covid test this afternoon, he said. 

"If I've got it I must be asymptomatic because I've got no symptoms at all." 

He was deemed a close contact but wasn't sure how or where he might have caught the virus. 

"I'm just waiting to see what this contact was." 

The aborted trial was confirmed by the Ministry of Justice in a statement released to Open Justice this afternoon. 

It will now be rescheduled, however a date confirming when that will take place wasn't available to media yet, the Ministry said. 

- by Belinda Feek and Hazel Osborne, Open Justice