A Canberra magistrate voiced concerns a woman and two of her sons, accused of killing the family matriarch in Red Hill, had not been committed to stand trial five months after the three were charged and put behind bars.
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Lawyers for artist Melissa Beowulf, 60, and her sons Bjorn Toren Beowulf, 29, and Thorsten Beowulf, 31, who wanted the case to move forward, clashed with prosecutors who asked for more time in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Police said they launched an investigation after they were called to the home of Katherine Helene Panin, 81, following a report a woman had fallen down stairs and died on October 12 in 2015.
Officers searched two Canberra properties and three vehicles last June.
They pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors froze assets belonging to the trio in the Supreme Court in September.
The three faced court, wearing grey prison tracksuits, on Tuesday, when their defence lawyers asked the matters be committed for trial in the higher court.
But prosecutor Margaret Jones said she would not consent to a committal and asked for an adjournment to next year as the prosecution awaited further financial documents relevant to the case.
Ms Beowulf's solicitor, Rachel Bird, said authorities seized numerous documents from the defendant's home last July as part of a 15-month investigation.
"The prosecution have had ample time to prepare a brief," she said.
She said some pressure should be put on the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to expedite the matter if the adjournment was granted.
Her concerns were echoed by the Beowulf brothers' Legal Aid lawyer, Louise Taylor, who wanted their matters committed for trial given the time they had been in custody and the age of the allegations.
She agreed it was "appropriate some pressure be brought to bear on the director's office".
Ms Jones said the committal should take place once the full brief of evidence was available and whether the case was committed this month or next would not make a difference to the timing of an eventual Supreme Court trial.
Magistrate Robert Cook strongly questioned why the matter shouldn't be committed when the majority of the brief, including the 60-page police statement of allegations, had been served.
Mr Cook said he was concerned the matter had not been shifted to the higher court given the defendants had been in custody for five months, although he said the delay wasn't necessarily unusual.
He said the case should be mentioned briefly in court before the end of the year to keep it moving and noted the prosecution said it would be in a position for the matter to be committed early next year.
The court also heard lawyers for the three accused had difficulty serving their clients with the lengthy electronic briefs of evidence in the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
Ms Bird said the prosecution had handed over the bulk of the brief against her client on a USB drive that held 7.75 gigabytes of information.
However, she said senior prison staff had refused requests to give that brief to Ms Beowulf, citing concerns over the USB drive.
Ms Taylor said she faced the same problem and had elevated the matter to the prison's general manager to hopefully be resolved.
The case returns to the court's family violence list on December 19 for mention.
The three are expected to be committed for trial in late January.
