‘He said they were having counselling’

JOE O’Reilly claimed his wife Rachel was reported to social services over her behaviour towards the couple’s two young sons in the months before she was murdered.

Kieran Gallagher, a friend of Mr O’Reilly’s through softball, told the Central Criminal Court that the accused discussed his marital problems when they had lunch together a couple of months before the murder.

“Joe discussed that they were having problems and he wanted to tell me first, that he didn’t want me to hear it from anybody else, that they were having counselling,” he said.