{"id":29958,"date":"2025-09-19T01:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T01:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/29958\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T01:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T01:21:08","slug":"inquest-into-death-of-showjumper-katie-simpson-may-consider-sky-documentary-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/29958\/","title":{"rendered":"Inquest into death of showjumper Katie Simpson may consider Sky documentary \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sky<\/a> documentary on murdered showjumper Katie Simpson features interviews that are \u201cpotentially relevant\u201d to an inquest into her death, a coroner\u2019s court has heard.<\/p>\n

Steps have been taken to obtain copies of the three-part programme, which aired earlier this month, by the legal team representing coroner Joe McCrisken.<\/p>\n

At a pre-inquest review hearing in Belfast on Thursday, Mr McCrisken said he wanted to make clear that he had not watched the documentary and does not intend to \u201cuntil I\u2019m told by agreement of all the interested persons here that it\u2019s okay that I should\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know, we haven\u2019t made decisions on whether it [the inquest] should have a jury or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ms Simpson (21), originally from Tynan, Co Armagh<\/a>, died in Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry in August 2020, six days after she was attacked in the house she shared with her sister and her partner, Jonathan Creswell, in Gortnessy Meadows, Lettershandoney.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0PSNI detective John Caldwell to sue BBC over comments in Katie Simpson documentaryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Police initially believed Mr Creswell\u2019s claims that Ms Simpson had taken her own life, but the following year he was arrested and charged with her rape and murder. <\/p>\n

His trial was abruptly halted in April last year after he was found dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During Thursday\u2019s hearing, counsel for the coroner, Philip Henry, provided an update on the \u201cvoluminous\u201d amount of documents examined by the coroner\u2019s legal team over the summer.<\/p>\n

Material forwarded by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) classed as \u201cnon-sensitive\u201d had all been viewed and assessed.<\/p>\n

Requests have been made to police for additional items to view, Mr Henry said.<\/p>\n

Not all \u201csensitive\u201d police material has been made available and Mr McCrisken asked for an update on when this could be provided.<\/p>\n

A barrister for the PSNI, Mark Robinson, said police will work \u201cexpeditiously\u201d to meet the court\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

At an earlier hearing, it emerged there were 352 police files to be examined, with between 25,000 to 29,000 pages including 44 police reports, 77 transmission files, a list of 165 exhibits, 237 statements and 53 interview files.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Mr Henry told the court that the coroner\u2019s team is also working through 781 files supplied by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland<\/a>, which he described as a \u201cconsiderable effort\u201d, but added that they are \u201cmaking progress\u201d.<\/p>\n

The State Pathologist has been approached \u201cgiven the potential importance of pathology material\u201d and asked to supply any relevant material to the coroner, the court heard.<\/p>\n

An interim report by the police watchdog into the PSNI investigation of Ms Simpson\u2019s death, published last November, found the initial police inquiry was \u201cflawed\u201d<\/a> and recommended disciplinary action against six police officers.<\/p>\n

Barrister Eugene McKenna, representing Ms Simpson\u2019s next-of-kin, informed the court on Thursday that he had written to the coroner\u2019s office in July about the Sky documentary, and received a \u201cprompt reply\u201d stating that the \u201cmatter will be kept under review\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr McKenna said he had yet to view it himself but was aware of a \u201cnumber of personalities\u201d interviewed for the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be material there that may be of relevance to your investigation. That is a matter that could be kept under review in the next agenda,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Henry noted the documentary was now \u201cpublicly available\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have already taken steps\u2026we will obtain copies of it. It needs to be assessed for potential relevance. The contents of those interviews are likely to be potentially relevant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr McCrisken adjourned the hearing until December 2nd in light of the volume of ongoing disclosure work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sky documentary on murdered showjumper Katie Simpson features interviews that are \u201cpotentially relevant\u201d to an inquest into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24257,42,24256,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-29958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-death-of-a-showjumper","tag-headlines","tag-katie-simpson","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}