Charges of assaulting police officers against a Co Tyrone man were dismissed at Cookstown Magistrates Court yesterday because the three RUC officers involved had been called away during the night to an "emergency exercise" in the South Armagh Newry area.
Objecting to the case being adjourned, Mr Liam McNally, defending, said that short of an invasion force coming up the Newry canal and the three policemen being required to repel it, the officers should have been in court.
Throwing out the charges, Magistrate Maurice McHugh said it was a most unsatisfactory situation.