A FORMER Ministry of Defence employee is to stand trial on charges including setting a man trap and injuring an Army bomb disposal expert.

Nigel Cockburn has pleaded not guilty to wounding Captain Iain Swan, assaulting him causing actual bodily harm, setting a mantrap calculated to destroy human life or inflict grievous bodily harm, and possessing a quantity of 9mm and .38 ammunition.

Capt Swan was injured when he entered a shed at one of the 52-year-old civil servant's homes in Wood Street, Swanley, Village, on July 11.

On Thursday Judge Michael Lawson, QC, granted Cockburn bail at Maidstone Crown Court until his trial, due to start on June 18 next year.