James Anthony Cunneen, from Muswellbrook in the Hunter region, was granted bail by Justice Mark Ierace in the NSW Supreme Court in June 2020.

The then 26-year-old was arrested in June 2017 and charged with being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Carly McBride in 2014.

Her remains were found in bushland at Owens Gaps, about 17 kilometres southwest of Scone, in August 2016, almost two years after the 31-year-old went missing.

In the NSW District Court on Thursday, Cunneen's lawyer applied for a bail variation for his client submitting the daily reporting was an "onerous" condition given his trial was not listed until May 2022.

He had not breached his bail in the 14 months since it had been granted.

Cunneen's residence was five minutes "on school days" away from the Muswellbrook police station where he was required to report, the lawyer said.

Judge Robert Weber noted bail conditions were set not just to secure a person's attendance at court.

Justice Ierace has set up a regime of drug testing and other bail conditions due to concerns about the "pivotal nature of drugs in your client's history of offending".

Those conditions had since been lessened to Cunneen's benefit.

Judge Weber pointed out, as was noted by the Crown, that about the only condition left which provided some degree of supervision for drug abstinence was Cunneen's daily reporting to police.

Travelling five minutes to the police station was "hardly onerous at all", he said in refusing the variation.

Australian Associated Press