Alleged IRA man James Seamus Fox to argue ‘no case to answer’ amid accusations of murdering postman Frank Kerr in sorting office in 1994

A prosecuting lawyer told Newry Magistrates’ Court that a week at the end of November had been set aside to deal with a Preliminary Investigation (PI) in the case against 61-year-old James Seamus Fox.

Fox, from the Carewamean Road in Jonesborough, is charged with the murder of a Newry postman Frank Kerr, robbing him of £131,000, possessing a pistol and a revolver with intent to endanger life – all alleged to have been committed on November 10, 1994, and three charges of membership or belonging to a proscribed organisation, namely the IRA, on dates between June 24, 1976, and November 11, 1994.

Mr Kerr, who was 52 and from Camlough, was shot in the neck as he carried out his work at the Royal Mail sorting office on Clanrye Avenue / Edward Street in the city when £131,000 was stolen in the robbery.

Disguised in Royal Mail uniforms, an IRA gang drove into the sorting office but Mr Kerr attempted to foil the robbery and was fatally wounded when a shot was fired.

Fox, whose lawyers have said previously he “strenuously denies” the offences, was charged after detectives from the PSNI’s Legacy Investigations Branch investigated the incident.

In court today, the PPS told District Judge Eamon King that hearings are scheduled at start at Downpatrick courthouse on November 29 and is “expected to last a week.”

For any criminal case to be elevated to the Crown Court a District Judge must be satisfied there is a prima facie case against a defendant.

In the large majority of cases that is done by a Preliminary Inquiry, where the defence concede there is a case to answer, but a PI differs in that the PPS must call evidence and witnesses to satisfy a judge there is sufficient evidence to warrant sending a case to the Crown Court.

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