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LEGAL representatives of 12 men accused of offences connected to the attempted murder of John Caldwell today voiced frustration at continued delays in the case.
The former senior PSNI officer was off-duty when he was shot several times after coaching a youth football team in Omagh in February 2023.
At the previous hearing, District Judge Conor Heaney had directed the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to provide a substantive update on the estimated timeframe for the case files to be prepared for a preliminary enquiry.
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However, a PPS representative today told Omagh Magistrates’ Court there was still no timeline for when the files would be completed.
The court heard that while decisions had been made in relation to some of the cases, work on a number of files remains ongoing.
The PPS has previously stated that the case papers cannot be divided and must be issued at the same time. The prosecution also confirmed that it still had no projected date for the completion of the files.
The PPS representative added that specialist police officers were assisting with the preparation of the file in an effort to speed up the process.
Senior counsel Eoghan Devlin KC said he believed the update was, in fact, ‘a non-update’.
He told the court that a letter sent to Patrick Fahy Solicitors was ‘vacuous and meaningless’.
Mr Devlin also noted that while the PPS had previously maintained that all files must be integrated, it appeared to have contradicted itself following the decision to drop charges against Alan McFarland last month.
Enquiry
Solicitor Michael Fahy suggested to District Judge Heaney that he might consider scheduling a preliminary enquiry date in eight to ten weeks, which he believed could help speed up the process of compiling the case file by police and the PPS.
However, District Judge Heaney said he was not prepared to do so at this stage.
Instead, he instructed the PPS to provide an update outlining a timeline for the completion of the file and how long it would take to seek consent from the Chief Justice.
The case will appear again before the local court on March 31.
