Howell to be key witness

The case against mother-of-two Hazel Stewart (47) had to be adjourned at Antrim Court, sitting in Coleraine, last Wednesday morning after her former lover, Dr Colin Howell (51), gave a new 43-page statement from Maghaberry Prison, to police.

Howell admitted the murders of his wife Lesley (31) and Ms Stewart's first husband, RUC scenes of crimes constable Trevor Buchanan (32), whose bodies were found in a car filled with carbon monoxide fumes in Castlerock, on May 1991.

It was first thought the pair died as a result of a suicide pact, but detectives reopened the investigation after interviewing the dentist last January.

Mrs Stewart, of Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, dressed in a three-quarter length green brocade coat, open necked shirt and wearing a silver crucifix around her neck, sat in the dock flanked by two prison officers.

Her second husband, retired police Chief Superintendent David Stewart, her son Andrew and daughter Lisa, accompanied her to court.

Stewart's defence lawyer, Paul Ramsey QC, told Mr Justice Anthony Hart that there was a "ferocious amount of detail" in Howell's statement which had to be examined.

He also indicated that it was unlikely that the trial would start before Christmas.

Mr Justice Hart said that he would conduct Howell's tariff hearing on Monday and would adjourn Stewart's trial until a date to be fixed.

Stewart was released on continuing bail.

As Mr Justice Hart left the courtroom, Stewart, who showed no emotion throughout, nodded imperceptibly.

She left the dock and was met by her husband, son and daughter who were in the public gallery. One of her sisters comforted her.

The bodies of Mrs Howell, a former nurse and mother of four, and constable Buchanan, were discovered in Castlerock on Sunday, May 19, 1991, in a car which had been reversed into a garage at the back of a row of houses known as The Apostles.

Mr Buchanan was in the driver's seat of a Renault Savannah Estate car and Mrs Howell in the boot, wearing a personal stereo headset. Three family photographs, including one of her in her Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, nurses uniform were lying beside her.

An inquest a year later, in May 1992, said that the two had taken their own lives.

It was disclosed during the hearing that Howell, who ran a dental practice in Ballymoney and Mr Buchanan's wife had been having an affair. She worked as an assistant at a children's nursery in Coleraine at the time.

Howell is also facing indecent assault charges against some of his female patients. He admitted assaulting three of them, but denied a series of other charges involving three other patients