Judge urges jury to ignore media reports

THE jury in the Rachel O’Reilly murder trial was warned yesterday to ignore media coverage of the high- profile case.

Trial judge Mr Justice Barry White issued the caution to the nine men and two women of the jury, after he advised them that some newspapers had carried “lurid headlines” about evidence heard on Thursday.

Joe O’Reilly, 35, a father-of-two from Lambay View, Baldarragh, The Naul, Co Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, Rachel, 30, at the family home on October 4, 2004.

At the end of yesterday’s hearing on the 15th day of the trial, Mr Justice White reminded the jury that he had warned them at the outset of the case to pay little or no heed to the media coverage which the trial might attract.

“You might have noticed there has been a lot of publicity,” said the judge.

Mr Justice White said he had not read yesterday’s newspapers but he had listened to RTÉ Radio’s It Says In The Papers.

He said the programme certainly seemed to indicate that most media, with the exception of the Irish Times, had carried front- page reports of the previous day’s evidence.

The judge said it had also suggested that some papers carried what could be described as “lurid headlines” about such testimony.

Mr Justice White stressed that it was they (the jury) who would decide the case, based only the evidence heard during the trial.

He advised them to disregard any report that they had seen or might see in the media, including any articles about the trial in this weekend’s newspapers.

Earlier, Detective Garda Robert Kehoe told the Central Criminal Court that he had examined CCTV footage of traffic on Church Street in north Dublin on October 4, 2004.

The witness explained he was scrutinising the tapes to look for a blue Fiat Marea vehicle travelling towards the Broadstone bus depot between 8am and 11am that morning.

Det Garda Kehoe said he was not in a position to say that there had been any such car passing that location. However, he had seen a car matching that description travelling in the opposite direction from Broadstone at 11.11am.

Det Garda Kehoe told the judge that it was possible that passing vehicles could be obstructed from the camera’s view by lorries.

In other evidence, Wesley Kearns, a former employee of outdoor advertising agency Viacom said he had been sacked by O’Reilly after being accused of failing to erect billboard signs.

On the day he was fired, Mr Kearns admitted he had thrown a fire extinguisher at the accused, who had locked himself in an office.

Asked about his attitude to O’Reilly, Mr Kearns replied: “I did like him until he sacked me.”

The witness said he was in a labour exchange in Clondalkin between 9am and 12 noon on the day of Rachel’s murder.

The case for the prosecution is expected to conclude early next week. The trial will resume on Monday at 11am.