Port Kembla Local Court magistrate Michael Stoddart granted an application from Fesus’s lawyers on Friday to delay committal proceedings until September at the earliest, so they could go through the hundreds of documents contained in the brief of evidence.

The 43-year-old security guard allegedly strangled his wife, Jodie, and dumped her body in a shallow beachside grave near Gerroa in 1997.

He was charged with murder in July 2013, almost 17 years after Ms Fesus went missing from the couple’s Mount Warrigal home.

Included in the 13-volume brief were ‘‘hundreds of hours’’ of conversations recorded covertly as part of the police investigation, the court heard in legal argument on the application this month.

In court on Friday, lawyers for both sides estimated a committal hearing would last at least a week.

It was also revealed that 18 witnesses would be called in the preliminary proceedings.

A committal hearing is a preliminary hearing held in the local court, in which a magistrate determines if there is enough evidence for the defendant to stand trial.

Legal argument for the committal proceedings has been set down for September 2.

Any trial would likely occur in October or November.