All eyes may have been on Harvey Weinstein as he awaited his fate on the 13th floor of Manhattan criminal court but it was even tenser behind the scenes.

The disgraced movie mogul, who was found guilty of one count of sexual assault on Wednesday but cleared of a second, had an outstanding rape charge collapse on Thursday as tensions in his jury reached breaking point.

There had been rumblings of discontent: reports of shouting, bullying – one juror is even said to have challenged another to a physical fight.

Judge Curtis Farber tried in vain to keep proceedings on track, insisting these were nothing more than the “normal tensions” which occur during the course of a trial, particularly one as high-profile as this.

Nobody can be quite sure what happened behind the closed doors of the jury room, except for the 12 members of the jury. But on Thursday, the foreman headed into court and refused to return to the deliberations.