With an incensed public keenly watching, the heir to the Red Bull fortune was due to face his accusers today. He has repeatedly failed to honour previous summonses and has yet to be charged with a crime.

Sutthi Kittisupaporn, chief of the Department of Southern Bangkok Criminal Litigation, said the 31-year-old grandson of the late Chaleo Yoovidhya, who co-founded the company that bottles the energy drink Red Bull, instead had his lawyer request a further postponement on the grounds that he was “preoccupied” overseas.

It was the same excuse Vorayuth offered for ignoring the previous summons on March 30, after which Office of the Attorney-General deputy spokesman Prayut Phetkhun declared that if he failed to show up today, an arrest warrant would be considered.

Sutthi said today prosecutors would allow no more postponements and would this afternoon make a statement regarding a possible arrest warrant.

Vorayuth was scheduled to face prosecutors over the 2012 hit-and-run death of police Senior Sgt-Major Wichean Klinprasert on Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road.

The prosecutors’ failure to act on March 30 further riled public opinion soon after news reports indicated that Vorayuth had all these years been living a lavish lifestyle overseas.

Vorayuth was accused of hitting and killing 47-year-old police patrolman Wichean with his Ferrari early one morning in September 2012 and dragging the body for a considerable distance. The statutes of limitation have since expired on charges of speeding and reckless driving causing property damage, but he remains accused of reckless driving resulting in death, which has a 15-year statute of limitation, and refusing to stop to assist a victim, for which the statute ends in September.

The first offence carries a maximum jail term of 10 years and the latter six months.