A Co Antrim dentist has appeared in court accused of drugging and indecently assaulting four of his female patients.
A preliminary inquiry in the case against Dr Colin Howell and former lover Hazel Stewart, who are both charged with murdering their partners in May 1991, is also expected to go ahead on March 1st, North Antrim Magistrates Court was told.
Dr Howell (50), from Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Derry, has been charged with drugging and indecently assaulting the four women at his clinic in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, on separate occasions over a 10-year period going back to 1998.
A crown lawyer told district judge Richard Wilson at a hearing in Coleraine today that further progress had been made. “We have requested a report from a dental expert regarding medication administration.”
Dr Howell, wearing jeans and a rugby-style dark blue shirt with red stripes, spoke just once to confirm his name when he appeared via video link from Maghaberry Prison, near Lisburn, Co Antrim where he had been held since his arrest by detectives almost a year ago.
He and Ms Stewart (46), a mother-of two from Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, are accused of murdering Dr Howell’s wife Lesley and Ms Stewart’s husband, Trevor Buchanan, an RUC scenes-of-crime officer.
Their bodies were found in a car filled with exhaust fumes at a garage behind a row of houses in Castlerock. At the time their deaths were believed suicides, but police reopened the inquiry at the end of last January after Dr Howell made a statement to investigating officers.
Ms Stewart has been on bail since her arrest and today made another brief appearance in the courtroom standing by her husband, former police chief superintendent David Stewart.
At the hearing in March, a district judge will decide if Dr Howell and Ms Stewart have a case to answer. Any trial in front of a judge and jury is likely to take place later this year.