The Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, is expected to reserve judgment later today in the Belfast trial of the two remaining Co Antrim men accused of murdering a Ballymoney RUC officer, Mr Greg Taylor (41).
The court will hear the testimony of a final defence witness and final submissions from both prosecution and defence lawyers. Yesterday the court was told by one of the accused men, Mr Alistair Stevenson, that he kicked the policeman on the night he was beaten to death in Church Street, Ballymoney, outside a confectionery shop on June 1st last year.
Giving evidence, 31-year-old Mr Stevenson said that something "must have clicked" inside his head to make him attack the policeman, whom he'd known since his teens. But the accused man, from Vow Road, Ballymoney, denied he meant to cause the constable any serious harm when he kicked him once "about the upper body". On hearing later of the constable's death he was "stunned, gutted" and "couldn't accept it", he said .
Earlier he told Mr Arthur Harvey QC, for the defence, that he had seen his co-accused, Mr Leslie Henry (31), of Eastburn Crescent, Ballymoney, "slumped over the bar" of Kelly's pub hours before the attack.
He said he later went upstairs after hearing about a row involving a friend and a policeman.
He claimed that the constable's friends intervened and "the discussion got sort of heated" and that a barman advised him to go back downstairs, which he did.
He said he rejoined his girlfriend, her sister and boyfriend and that he heard others complaining that the constable and his friends were getting "preferential treatment over the regulars". He claimed he didn't take much notice as he was in his own company and then Constable Taylor came into the downstairs bar.
"There was cat-calling and general banter," he said. There was a "fracas" involving two men, but one of the men's mother came in and took him away.
"There was a fracas at the door. I wasn't really paying any attention, just saw people at the door and there was a scuffle kind of thing." A "crowd" left the bar and he "went out the back of that crowd". Outside the crowd headed up the street, while he stopped to talk to a girl, Deborah Wallace, who was crying by the door.
Mr Stevenson said he then ran up the street to the crowd outside the Candy Box shop and saw someone on the ground whom he recognised as Constable Taylor. "I ran in and kicked him once on the top of the body, the trunk," he said.
He claimed that someone then "whipped" him back and he left to return to Kelly's bar to join his girlfriend.
Under cross-examination by Mr Patrick Lynch, the accused man denied he was lying as he had done in his first police statement, when he denied any involvement in the attack.