A Belfast businessman charged with terrorist offences arising from a bomb hoax targeting Irish Minister Simon Coveney has been refused bail.
The application to release 42-year old Darren Service was made, and rejected, at Belfast Crown Court.
The gym owner, from Ballysillan Road in the north of the city, has been in custody for 17 months on charges of preparation of terrorist acts, hijacking and placing an article causing a bomb hoax.
It's this passage of time, as well as health issues concerning his young daughter, that prompted the bid for bail.
On March 25, 2022 a workman was threatened and forced to transport a device placed in the back of his vehicle by two masked men to a peace-building event on the Crumlin Road.
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney was attending the event at the Houben Centre in the Holy Cross Church - and after the van driver alerted police regarding the device in his van, the Centre was evacuated in what was later described as a hoax bomb alert.
It's the Crown's case that the two masked men who hijacked the van were driven to the scene and dropped off by Service - and a prosecutor told Judge Mark Reel the bail application was opposed.
Revealing Service has already been refused bail on three previous occasions, she described last March's incident as terrorist offences "carried out by the UVF."
The prosecutor said that when Service's home was searched in the aftermath of the incident, officers seized £100,000 located in a safe as well as balaclavas, a replica firearm, UVF pins and luxury watches.
Regarding the issue of passage of time, she said that whilst the Crown accepts "at some point in time, regardless of what the charges are, an applicant should be granted bail, the prosecution say that time has not been reached."
Branding the 17 months Service has now spent in custody as "disproportionate" and "excessive", defence barrister Joseph O'Keefe said that after the incident his client attended with police voluntarily and was "not sought out."
The defence barrister also raised issues concerning Service's daughter, who has been diagnosed with autism, and the difficulties now faced both by the child and her mother as she starts school.
Mr O'Keefe said this diagnosis has caused "deep distress" to Service who wants to be with his daughter and assist his partner.
After listening to submissions from the Crown and defence, Judge Reel refused the application.
He did, however, note that a legal bid to dismiss the charges against Service is being held next month and "at that juncture it may well be appropriate to revisit the issues in this application."