THE theft trial of the housekeepers of disgraced former Rangers owner Craig Whyte may be delayed because the prosecution cannot serve a witness citation on the elusive millionaire businessman.
Terence Horan, 53, and Jane Hagan, 50, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to confirm their pleas of not guilty.
They deny stealing a huge array of items from Castle Grant, near Grantown-on-Spey, Moray, between June 1 and September 7, 2012, where they were employed.
Both are alleged to have stolen items including a quad bike, quantities of coins and Dutch guilders, a silver photograph frame, a hip flask and cups, three sets of cufflinks and a telescope.
The accused, now of Bicester, Oxfordshire, are also charged with stealing other items including three pens, two lamps, headed notepaper, five chairs and a table, a chest, a compass, electrical items, photograph albums, a bin and a clay trap.
Fiscal depute Heather Swan told Sheriff Margaret Neilson that the Crown has been unable to execute a witness citation on Mr Whyte and they required more time to do this.
She said: "We are not yet prepared for trial because we are still waiting for execution of witness citation on one of the witnesses – a Mr Craig Whyte."
Ms Swan successfully asked for a further intermediate diet, normally scheduled to ascertain if both prosecution and defence are ready for trial, on May 28 to determine their status for the trial on June 10 to proceed.
Both Hagan and Horan's attendance was excused because they would have to travel from the south of England.
Horan's defence lawyer Eilidh Macdonald joined with the Crown motion for a further diet because a report on the analysis of a computer was not yet available.
At an earlier hearing in February, Ms Macdonald claimed that evidence produced by Mr Whyte may be false.
She said then: "Reference has been made to a letter which the complainer [Whyte] produced from a computer which is owned and operated by the accused and purporting to be from the accused.
"I have that computer in my office and there is a suggestion that the letter has been falsified."
Motherwell-born Whyte has an address in London, a home in Monaco and also stays at historic Castle Grant, which he bought in 2006 for £720,000, almost every second weekend to visit his children.
The castle was recently raided by police who took away computer equipment and files in relation to investigations into Whyte's controversial dealings with Rangers and its former CEO, Charles Green.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article