A dentist in the North accused of murdering his wife and his ex-lover’s husband pleaded guilty today to indecently assaulting three women patients at his surgery.
Colin Howell (51) admitted the charges when he appeared before Judge David Smyth QC at Antrim Crown Court, in Northern Ireland. But he denied accusations of indecently assaulting three other women at his dental implant clinic in Ballymoney, Co Antrim.
Howell, dressed in a light grey suit, shirt and striped tie, stood to attention with his hands clasped with prison officers on either side of him, as he admitted the sex charges.
He pleaded guilty to three charges, but denied 14 others, mostly involving three other women. They include six allegations against one of the women.
An earlier court hearing banned identification of any of his alleged victims. Some of the charges go as far back as March 1998.
Howell, of Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Derry, and his ex-lover Hazel Stewart (47), of Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, Co Derry, are due to stand trial next month charged with the murders of their respective partners, who were found dead in a car filled with exhaust fumes in May 1991.
Father-of-10 Howell admitted assaulting the three patients on various dates between July and December 2008, just weeks before he was arrested by officers investigating the deaths of his wife Lesley (31) and Mrs Stewart’s first husband, police officer Trevor Buchanan (32).
At the time their bodies were found in a car parked in a garage behind the home of Mrs Howell’s late father, and detectives believed they had died as a result of a suicide pact.
But after questioning Howell and his former lover in January last year, they opened a murder investigation.
The murder trial is due to begin on November 22nd, possibly in Coleraine, but the indecent assault charges against Howell will he heard by a separate court.
PA