A MAJOR legal row broke out in the Eamonn Lillis murder trial when lawyers for the accused asked for the jury to be discharged over claims that the trial judge, Mr Justice Barry White, was pushing them towards a verdict of murder.

Eamonn Lillis has been found not guilty of murdering his wife, Celine Cawley, but guilty of her manslaughter in their Howth home while their daughter was at school.

The jury in the Eamonn Lillis murder trial will resume its deliberations at the Central Criminal Court tomorrow morning.

EAMONN Lillis’s defence team yesterday pleaded for his acquittal after claiming the case for the prosecution did not stand up to scrutiny.

THE prosecution in the Eamonn Lillis murder trial yesterday urged the jury to convict him of the murder of his wife Celine Cawley on December 15, 2008.

EAMONN LILLIS yesterday denied he killed his wife, Celine Cawley, and said he never felt trapped in his marriage or believed that a relationship with his younger lover may have offered him a new life.

Eamonn Lillis has denied that he felt trapped in his marriage to Celine Cawley, whom he is accused of murdering at their home on December 15, 2008.

THE Eamonn Lillis murder trial has heard that the accused never hit his wife with a brick during a fatal row which erupted over his failure to put out food for birds.

SILENCE descended on Court 19 as the only person still alive to recount how Celine Cawley met her death began his evidence at the Central Criminal Court.

EAMONN LILLIS told the woman he was seeing before his wife died that she banged her head during a row they had over his not taking out the rubbish, she told his murder trial.

FOR someone cast unwillingly in the national spotlight in spectacular and tragic circumstances, Jean Treacy presented a calm, self-assured appearance as she gave evidence at the Eamonn Lillis murder trial.

CONTROVERSY erupted yesterday when the former lover of murder accused Eamon Lillis was allowed to use a secure underground entrance to the Criminal Courts of Justice complex in Dublin to avoid photographers.

A TV advertising producer accused of murder described to his mistress how he and his wife had a violent row over his failure to put out rubbish on the morning she died, a court heard.

Eamonn Lillis told the woman he was seeing before his wife died that she banged her head during a row they had over his not taking out the rubbish, she told his murder trial.

IF the public airing of intimate text messages between lovers caused any embarrassment for Eamonn Lillis, it did not register on his face yesterday in court.

Eamonn Lillis and his mistress exchanged more than 200 text messages and almost 90 calls in the fortnight before his wife’s death, his murder trial heard.

IT could have been the outline of a plot for a Mills & Boon fictional romance but one which bore more than a passing resemblance to reality.

MURDER accused Eamonn Lillis told gardaí how his affair with a beauty therapist – which began just 10 weeks before his wife died – was part of “a mid-life crisis”, the jury at his trial heard yesterday.

A DUBLIN businessman accused of murdering his wife had begun an extra-marital affair just months before his wife’s violent death at their luxury home in Howth, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.