FAMILIES have been left stunned, shocked and speechless after two brothers accused of conning people into visiting a Lapland-style theme park had their convictions overturned.

Victor and Henry Mears, from Brighton, were jailed for 13 months in March this year and have both now served their sentences.

At the original trial the brothers denied eight charges of misleading advertising but they were found guilty on all counts by the jury at Bristol Crown Court.

The court heard that they offered visitors to the Lapland New Forest attraction near Ringwood in 2008 a winter wonderland with snow-covered log cabins, a nativity scene, husky dogs, polar bears and other animals, as well as a bustling Christmas market.

But families said they found a muddy field, a broken ice rink and fairy lights hanging from trees.

Yesterday three judges at the Court of Appeal overturned their convictions.

The judges said that they had ‘reached the conclusion that the convictions are unsafe’, after hearing the argument that the original trial jury should have been discharged after it was revealed a female juror had been exchanging text messages with her fiancé.

The incident was only discovered during the judges summing up when Victor Mears Junior – the son of defendant Victor Mears – spotted the pair talking outside court and reported it.

The woman was discharged from the panel but the trial continued with 11 jurors.

Lawyer Rossano Scamardella, counsel for Henry Mears said at the Court of Appeal: “The jury retiring room can no longer be seen as sacrosanct, a pre-requisite for a fair trial. The entire jury should have been discharged.”

No application was made for a re-trial.

Dorset residents said they were shocked by the news.

Lisa Perry, from Wyke Regis, and 12 members of her family went to the attraction which was based at Matcham’s Leisure Park.

She said: “I’m stunned. I can’t believe how they can overturn the conviction on the strength of that.

“I don’t know what else to say, I’m speechless.”

Mrs Perry said that her family had been disappointed with their experience and never got any compensation for the £300 they paid.

She said: “You had to be there to see it. I have never been to anything as bad as that.”

Christine and Eddie Teague, from Dorchester, took their grandchildren to the attraction and said it was ‘nothing like’ what they were expecting.

Mrs Teague said: “I think it’s a disgrace. I took my two grandchildren. We waited for hours to see Father Christmas.”

She added: “It was nothing like Santa’s Grotto, nothing at all.”

She added that lots of other families had been disappointed and was shocked to hear about the juror.

She said: “It’s a disgrace. She shouldn’t have texted her fiancé.”

* A SPOKESMAN for the Ministry of Justice said that he could not comment on individual cases but in general for cases where a conviction was overturned on a technicality then the defendants would not be eligible for compensation for time spent in prison.

He said: “They would not be eligible for compensation in the way they would be for a miscarriage of justice.”