‘Is it panic as opposed to the dark interpretation of those events as advanced by the prosecution?’

THIS is an excerpt of what Blaise O’Carroll SC, defending, told the jury in his summing up speech yesterday.

Mr O’Carroll first turned to the relationship between Wayne O’Donoghue and Robert Holohan before the death of the boy on January 4.

Mr O’Carroll said: “Any reasonable person looking at the relationship between Robert and Wayne in the context of someone saying Wayne intended to kill Robert or cause him serious injury - it just smacks you as completely absurd. It does not have the ring of truth about it.