A MAN accused of murdering his wife and his lover’s husband is facing new charges of indecent assault on some of his female patients, it was revealed today.
Dr Colin Howell, a dentist, will undergo a second criminal trial on 17 allegations of indecent assault on six women over a 10-year period. He is accused of assaulting one of them six times, and another four times.
Dr Howell (51), Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Derry, had previously been charged with drugging and indecently assaulting four women but those eight holding charges, which included claims that he had unlawfully applied or administered a stupefying or an overpowering drug, have been withdrawn.
Instead, the 17 indecent assault charges were put to him yesterday at a brief preliminary inquiry hearing at North Antrim Magistrates Court in Coleraine, Co Derry.
The identities of the six women were banned from publication after Judge Richard Wilson agreed to a request by a Public Prosecution Service representative for reporting restrictions to be applied in this respect.
Dr Howell and his former lover, mother of two Hazel Stewart (50), from Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, are due to go on trial before a jury later this year charged with the murders of their partners who were found dead in a garage in the seaside town of Castlerock in May 1991.
Mother of four Lesley Howell (30) and Ms Stewart’s first husband, scenes of crime officer PC Trevor Buchanan (31), were thought to have died in a suicide pact, poisoned by carbon monoxide fumes.
Their bodies were discovered in a car parked in a garage behind the home of Ms Howell’s father Harry, who had collapsed and died just days earlier. – (PA)