Victor Kennedy, of no fixed abode, was charged with murdering Mr McGinnis on July 6.

Mr McGinnis, from Shanreagh Park in Limavady was found dead at the bottom of steps at a park in Blackburn Path at 2am last Friday. He was buried in the town on Wednesday.

A detective inspector told the special sitting of the court that when cautioned at Coleraine PSNI station, Kennedy made no reply.

During the hearing Kennedy's solicitor Johnny Sandhu asked the police officer to confirm that the defendant had given an account of exactly how the incident happened before any material evidence was put to him.

He replied: "After initially denying, he did make certain admissions."

Mr Sandhu also said that police had released the body to the family without giving the defence team the opportunity to carry out a post- mortem, to which the detective inspector responded that the decision to release the body to the family had been taken as police "were not in a position to even consider preferring a charge at that time".

He said the written results of the post-mortem would be made available to the defence team in due course, but added that this would be likely to take more than a couple of days.

Mr Sandhu told the court: "We have indicated we would like our pathologist to consider the conclusions of that report in that there are possibly two causes of death."

Resident Magistrate Greg McCourt said he expected all these matters would be dealt with in due course.

The RM remanded Kennedy to appear back before the magistrate's court in Derry via video link on August 9, adding that the defendant had a right to make an application for bail.