A JUDGE expressed concerns at the delay of the case of a Worcester man accused of GBH, due to issues caused by HMP Hewell's Covid outbreak.

A plea and trial preparation hearing in the case of Simon Edge was scheduled for an afternoon listing on Tuesday.

The 40-year-old, of Drakes Avenue, faces the ABH charge and is currently in custody at the jail that we recently reported had suffered an outbreak of the virus just before Christmas.

At the start of the hearing, that was held over Microsoft Teams in front of his honour Judge Martin Jackson, Emily Heggadon, defending Edge, said the case had previously been listed before, on December 21.

Miss Heggadon explained Edge had not attended then as he was on a 'Covid wing' of the prison.

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Miss Heggadon told the judge she wasn't sure if Edge was still on that wing, and had no further information as she had not been able to speak to her client in a conference, ahead of the latest Worcester Crown Court hearing of the case.

"I'm simply not sure why there has not been any conferences (now)," Miss Heggadon said.

"My experience recently has unfortunately been that they (the prison) can not guarantee that they go ahead.

"Conferences are unfortunately being cancelled regularly, at short notice."

The judge said: "I was thinking of putting this off until Monday, February 8.

"Obviously we have got to be aware of custody time limits at the moment because Mr Edge has been in custody for some time, since the middle of November.

"Custody time limits expire on July 12 - if there is to be a trial we are losing quite a bit of time."

The judge decided to next list the matter for January 25, with a videolink to HMP Hewell requested so the defendant could view the hearing.

Judge Jackson added: "We will re-list it and hope this time it does work."