A MOBILE phone belonging to Co Tyrone woman Charlotte Murray was used to send and receive text messages in the fortnight after she allegedly disappeared nearly seven years ago.
However Dungannon Crown Court heard yesterday that the exact location of Ms Murray's phone, or that of her boyfriend Johnny Miller, cannot be determined with any certainty.
All that can be said is that they were operated within the catchment area of one or more a number of cell sites.
The 34-year-old Omagh woman allegedly disappeared around Halloween 2012, from the Roxborough Heights home in The Moy she shared with her 48-year-old chef boyfriend.
Originally from Coleraine Mr Miller, with an address in Redford Park in Dungannon, denies murdering her sometime between October 30, and November 2, 2012.
A police officer told the jury that an examination of the couple's mobile phone records revealed that calls and text messages were made and received by both phones between November 2 and 15 November 15 2012.
One text on November 11 was sent from Ms Murray's phone and within seconds, received by Mr Murray's phone. It also emerged both phones were connecting to the same cell site which could be detected at Roxborough Heights.
While the officer claimed his findings were "consistent with the handsets being at the location of Roxborough Heights" under cross examination from defence QC Orlando Pownall, he accepted that "the phones could be anywhere where the cell provides coverage."
Mr Pownall said the cell site analysis was a further illustration that while one phone could be registered on one site, another either sending or receiving calls or texts may be on another, "covering many many square kilometres".
"Yes it would be a lot," agreed the expert.
He said six cell sites were detected at the house, the furthest being in Keady about 15km away. The expert further agreed the records showed that Charlotte's phone had been in Belfast on the October 25 and 30, but not in the city after the 31st.
In conclusion, and again accepted by the officer, Mr Pownall said while it was a matter for the jury, helped by the evidence of the various expert witnesses, "one must be extremely cautious before concluding if a phone was within Roxborough Heights or within the various cell site areas."
The court also heard that Mr Miller was initially interviewed as a witness by police after Charlotte's disappearance was reported by her family in May 2013.
He told them that after their relationship had ended and she had gone to Belfast to start a new job at the end of October or the start of November.
He said: "I have thought a lot about it but can't remember the exact date."
In a statement read to the jury Mr Miller told police "she seemed to just take a head staggers and said that's me, leaving with an overnight bag and some clothes."
Over the next couple of days he said he received text messages from her while he was at work at the Colhannon Inn to say she was collecting the rest of her clothes and other items which he had boxed up.
"She then texted something like don't text me again. Since then, I had no other contact with her," he told police.
He described his former fiancee as "very headstrong" and who in anger would throw things at him and on occasions he had barricaded himself in a room.
However, he also told officers: "I would never have been violent back towards her."
