Wayne was always there for me, says girlfriend

THERE wasn’t a sound in Courtroom Number Two yesterday when counsel for the prosecution called to the stand Wayne O’Donoghue’s girlfriend, Rebecca Dennehy, who had been mentioned repeatedly this week during evidence at the Robert Holohan murder trial.

This was the teenage girl the accused spent much of his time with - whom he was helping to draw up a Leaving Cert study timetable and the one person he had requested permission to speak with after he made his confessional statement and before he was arrested by gardaí.

It was Rebecca that Wayne expressly went to see on the night of Robert’s death as he thought it would be the “last time” before his planned suicide.

Dressed in black with a mustard, black and red-striped scarf, the petite blonde walked confidently to the witness stand, took her seat and directed herself at the judge and jury.

She told the jury how the accused called to her house after 1.15pm on the day that Robert died. He then went home to study, she said. They spoke on the phone later that afternoon when he called her to say he’d telephone her later when he was finished with his “college stuff”.

Rebecca told the prosecution that the accused “seemed normal” during the brief conversation and how when he called to her house to watch The Simpsons later, he again “seemed fine”.

The next day, she said, he seemed “upset and worried”, saying he felt like Robert’s disappearance was his fault because if he, Wayne, had taken Robert to McDonald’s, he’d still be around.

Under cross-examination by Blaise O’Carroll, senior counsel for the defence, Rebecca told the court how she had fallen in love with Wayne the year before and how they would see each other “more than likely every day””

Rebecca met Robert through Wayne and said “Wayne was mad about Rob”. Robert and Wayne got on really well, she said, and she had never heard Wayne say anything derogatory about Robert.

Rebecca told the defence how she had spent “probably nearly every day” with Wayne while the search for Robert was going on. “There were times when he was really quiet and seemed into himself,” she said.

Other times he seemed “agitated”.

Rebecca started her evidence clearly and confidently, albeit with a few lumps in her throat, but as the questioning progressed and turned to her relationship with Wayne and how she learnt of his role in Robert’s death, the tears flowed.

“I got on really well with him,” she said.

“He was genuine and caring. I can’t fault Wayne personally.”

Wayne, she said, was always “there for me” anytime she needed him, day or night.

She spoke of how they held hands a lot and hugged and how he never left her without a kiss. She noted on the morning of January 16, the day he confessed his role in Robert’s death, he didn’t kiss her at the door.

The young girl left the stand tear-stained and red-eyed.