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A coroner has blasted “amateur hour” after a police error in colour coding saw a security vetting slot for materials with the Secretary of State missed.

Coroner Patrick McGurgan has been presiding over preparations for an inquest into the death of Belfast republican Gerard “Jock” Davison, 47, who was shot in the Markets area as he walked to work in May 2015.

He had been involved in a personal dispute with other republicans.

Three months after he was killed, former IRA man Kevin McGuigan was murdered in a shooting in nearby Short Strand.

Preparations for inquests for both men have been hit by a number of delays.

The most recent delay ahead of Mr Davison’s inquest, which has seen preliminary hearings every few months for six years, has been over the preparation of police files for the hearings.

The PSNI is seeking to withhold certain sensitive files from the inquest on the grounds of public interest immunity (PII).

The latest preliminary hearing on Friday morning heard that a bundle of material prepared to be looked at by the Secretary of State in the PII application were incorrectly prepared.

The error came in the colours used to indicate what was being proposed to be redacted for different reasons.

Barrister Joseph Aiken, acting for the Secretary of State, said the queries raised with the papers from police saw the slot with the minister lost.

He said they hope to secure another slot later this month.

“In the nicest possible way there is nothing more the Secretary of State can do. The queries were set out in writing over a number of months, and the position is until the papers are provided in a form that the Secretary of State can consider them, we can’t get this shifted any further,” he said.

Barrister John Rafferty, acting for the PSNI, said he became aware of the issue yesterday (Thursday) after the latest papers were went to the Secretary of State this week.

“That’s whenever the issue became clear,” he said.

Mr McGurgan queried who had been involved, adding: “This sounds like amateur hour”.

Mr Rafferty said he did not have an explanation, to which Mr McGurgan responded: “That adds fuel to the fire that is building inside me you can’t come to my court and tell me you’ve no instructions in something as fundamental as someone not getting the paperwork right.”

The coroner went on: “You need to provide the colour coded crayons for whoever is doing it no disrespect, it’s outrageous.

“Something as fundamentally basic as colour coding redactions at this stage in these inquests beggars belief quite frankly. It smacks of complete complacency or delay, and I am not having it.”

Mr McGurgan ordered that the work be completed by September 18, or whoever is responsible “will be appearing in my court in person in front of me to explain to everyone concerned, including the next of kin, as to why the wrong colour was applied to the papers and they’ll not be leaving my court in a very happy fashion.

“I do not normally get annoyed about things like this, I normally give people plenty of leeway but my good will is now being stretched.”

He added: “Whatever resource is required needs to be applied to this because this is not an issue of anyone’s making but the PSNI’s and therefore they need to resolve it, so if it takes ten people in that office to put their mind to this, I fully expect that to happen otherwise I will be holding people to account.

“I fully expect people who are supposed to be professional doing these matters to have done properly, now we’re talking about colour co ordinations, it beggars belief in my mind.”

Barrister Sean Devine, acting for the Mr Davison’s next of kin, thanked the Coroner for “articulating the concerns that we have”.

“The only silver lining about what seems to be a slightly shambolic state of affairs is that the court is all over it,” he said.

Mr McGurgan ordered another review hearing for September 18 to monitor progress.