A female police officer hurt in the incident which claimed the life of Sheku Bayoh may never be fit to stand trial, a court heard.
Nicole Short, 30, is accused of illegally accessing information on the police computer system in a case unrelated to Mr Bayoh’s death in Kirkcaldy on May 3 last year.
The PC was said by the Scottish Police Federation to have suffered significant injuries and feared for her life during the incident involving Mr Bayoh, which is still being probed by the Police Investigation and Review Commissioner.
She was discharged shortly after being taken to hospital but subsequently went off work on long term sick leave.
Short was absent when her case called at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, her trial already having been postponed.
A date set for her trial later this month was set as a notional diet as judge Sheriff Grant McCulloch heard she may never be fit to go into the dock.
Short, of Glenrothes, denies three charges of viewing crime files of two people for non-policing reasons without consent and accessing the Scottish Intelligence Database to gain information about them on two dates during October 2012.
Her solicitor Joe Paterson said she had been examined by both a neurologist and psychiatrist, with reports given to the Crown, and that the Crown had also had her assessed by its own psychiatrist.
But he said: “There are some doubts whether she can ever participate in the trial process.
“There may be a plea in bar of trial on the basis of her medical state.”
Father-of-two Sheku, 31, died in police custody in Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital following the incident in the town’s Hayfield Road.
He was restrained by up to nine police officers as he returned home from a friend’s house at around 7am.
His family and partner Collette Bell are still fighting for the truth about what happened.
Short is one of at least two officers who went off sick on full pay.
It recently emerged she posted photographs of herself on Twitter at a football match at Celtic Park while on sick leave.
