Judgment has been reserved in the Belfast Crown Court trial of Mr Marc Hobson (21), who denies murdering a Portadown man, Mr Robert Hamill, nearly two years ago.
Lord Justice McCollum reserved judgment after turning down a defence application to stop the trial of Mr Hobson, from Deer Park, Portadown, and acquit him.
Mr John Orr QC, defending, in final submissions said Mr Hobson's refusal to give evidence should not be held against him as he had already made his case to police that he was an innocent bystander when Mr Hamill was attacked by a sectarian loyalist crowd on April 27th, 1997. Mr Orr claimed the evidence of the main Crown witness, RUC Constable Alan Neill, who purported to identify Mr Hobson as an attacker, was flawed, patently deficient, at variance with the other evidence and self-serving.
Mr Gordon Kerr QC, prosecuting, argued that it was significant Mr Hobson refused to go into the witness box to contradict the evidence of Constable Neill, who was not directly challenged by the defence that he had been mistaken in his identification.
He said that even if his identification evidence was weak and the identification made in difficult circumstances it could still reach the required criminal standards for a conviction.
Reserving judgment, Lord Justice McCollum said: "Obviously not only is there the basic issue in this case of whether the accused is guilty or not guilty, there are other aspects of the case that I should refer to in my findings".