Alibi: very possible my timing was wrong
The court already heard evidence that O’Reilly told gardaí he was with co-worker Derek Quearney inspecting posters in the Broadstone bus depot on the morning of the murder.
Mr Quearney took to the witness box yesterday, the first of two defence witnesses, on day 18 of the trial.
O’Reilly, aged 35, of Lambay View, Baldarragh, The Naul, Co Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Rachel at the family home on October 4, 2004.
Mr Quearney, 46, originally from Ballyfermot in south-west Dublin, told defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC that he joined the TDI advertising agency in 1998. This company later merged with Viacom and he got to know O’Reilly in 2002.
Mr Gageby asked Mr Quearney about his movements on the morning of Rachel O’Reilly’s murder.
Mr Quearney replied: “I met with Joe about 8am. We had arranged to go in and do an inspection in Broadstone bus depot. Joe headed on in. I had to stay back and issue posters to the lads in work.”
Asked what time he followed O’Reilly into the depot, Mr Quearney said: “About nine, or 10 to nine or so.”
The witness said he drove his Citroen Xsara and that O’Reilly drove a Fiat Marea.
Mr Quearney said he arrived in the depot at about 9.30am. After parking his car in Broadstone, Mr Quearney said: “I rang Joe to see where he was. He said he was at the back of the pits. I got out of the car. I said I’d find him there.”
Mr Quearney said he inspected four or five buses that were in the pits at the time. Asked to give a “figure of time” he thought that was “approximately 10 to 10 or 10 o’clock”.
The witness said he met O’Reilly at this stage and started another inspection. “Myself and Mr O’Reilly went away and inspected all the buses that were parked in the Phibsboro garage.”
After that he recounted meeting O’Reilly for a second time. Asked what time this was, he said: “Maybe 10.30.”
When Mr Gageby asked Mr Quearney what time they left the Broadstone bus depot, he said about 11am.
Mr Gageby then asked him about the interviews he gave to gardaí. Mr Quearney said the first statement he gave was on the evening of the murder and that the next one was two days later.
He also described being arrested on November 16. He said he was then brought to Balbriggan Garda Station and kept in custody for “about 40 hours”.
He said: “Gardaí went through my statement and were expressing that I must be wrong in my statement.”
He said gardaí showed him a record of the calls he made to O’Reilly and asked him whether he could be wrong about the times.
“I then said it was possible I could be wrong in the timing,” he told the court.
Referring to phone evidence gardaí showed him, he said: “Gardaí were showing me the phone evidence and saying ‘your phone was in certain areas when Joe’s was bouncing off other masts on the north side’.”
He said: “As a result of that, I said it was very possible my timing was wrong.”
He added: “I don’t understand how I could be wrong because I still remember that as the way we did it — the inspections.”
He said gardaí told him there was a 30 or 40-minute time gap between the times he said he saw O’Reilly.
“I said it is possible but that is not the way I remember it.”
Prosecution counsel Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC began his cross-examination by asking Mr Quearney whether he remembered a Mr Kinnear.
Mr Quearney said he didn’t know him. Mr Vaughan Buckley then told him that Mr Kinnear gave evidence that there was no point in inspecting buses at the depots in the mornings because all the buses would be out.
Mr Quearney replied: “If I was doing bus depots, I would normally do them at night as 100% of buses would be there.”
However, he explained that it was not that kind of inspection as he was there to inspect the posters a Viacom employee called Damien Tully had put up over the weekend.
Mr Buckley told him they’d already heard evidence from Mr Tully who told the court he was putting up posters at Pearse St Dart Station and was at no point during that day at the Broadstone bus depot.
Mr Buckley also told Mr Quearney that O’Reilly told gardaí he was there to inspect Mr Tully’s posters and that he’d seen Mr Mr Quearney said Mr Tully was covering for a man on leave and that is why he went to the Dart station instead of going to the Broadstone depot, as expected.
He said Mr Tully’s working week included weekends and that they went to inspect his work.
Mr Buckley then went on to ask him about a further statement he made to gardaí on March 2, 2006.
He agreed that in this statement, he said: “I have been shown O2 Ireland mobile reports covering the movements of Joe O’Reilly’s mobile phone which he had on the 4th of October, along with a PowerPoint presentation of his movements. Since the statement on the 17th of November, I accept that my original timings of seeing Joe O’Reilly in the Broadstone bus depot on the 4th of October could be wrong. I wish to add that the only time I could be definite of seeing Mr O’Reilly was when I rang [colleague] Noel Padget’s mobile phone and I accept that this phone call was at 10.59am.”
Mr Buckley then put it to him that this statement is the true position and not that he saw the accused at 9.30am on October 4.
He replied: “This statement is correct in saying that the only time I saw him was at 10.59.”
Mr Buckley asked him about a call he had made to O’Reilly at 09:25:07. He told Mr Quearney: “the evidence establishes that the call was picked up by the Murphy’s Quarry mast which is a short distance away from the O’Reilly’s and that this call lasted for two minutes, seven seconds. What did you say?”
Mr Quearney replied: “Where are you Joe?”
“He told me he was at the back of the pits in the Broadstone bus depot.”
Asked whether gardaí had told him O’Reilly hadn’t been seen on the CCTV footage from the depot that morning, he said: “Not inside in the pits, he wasn’t.”
Asked again whether he could be wrong, he said: “I accept that I’m possibly wrong as I’ve said all along but that’s not how I remember the inspection on the day.”
Asked whether he was aware O’Reilly had been having an affair, he said: “I was, yes.” He also said: “He told me that if he was going out for the affair, would I cover for him.”
Asked: “Would you cover for anyone who had murdered?” Mr Quearney said: “Absolutely not.”
The trial before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of nine men and two women continues today.
THE judge in the murder trial of Joe O’Reilly told the jury that the evidence in the case has concluded.
Mr Justice Barry White told them they still had to hear three speeches, from the prosecution, the defence and then his own charge. He said that during his own charge, he was obliged to summarise the evidence and give them directions of law.
He told them he it was likely they would be sent out to consider their verdict on Friday lunchtime.
Earlier, the court heard evidence from another witness, Joseph O’Shea, who said he saw O’Reilly outside the bus depot on a rainy day in October.
Mr O’Shea told defence counsel Mr Patrick Gageby SC that he was a couple of years ahead of O’Reilly in secondary school.
Mr O’Shea, a glazer from Coolock, said that since he’d left school, he had seen O’Reilly on three occasions, once 20 years ago, again on the day of the murder and a few months after when he met him in McDonald’s on the Malahide Road.
Asked how he can help the jury, he said: “That I seen Joe O’Reilly at Broadstone depot one morning.”
Asked by Vaughan Buckley, cross-examining: “What do you remember Mr O’Reilly doing?”, he said: “He was standing at the poster at the top of the corner at Broadstone.”
Asked, “Could you help us with the time at all?”, he said: “Around 11-ish.”
Asked, “Who asked you to go to the Garda Station?”, he said: “Nobody, I went of my own free will.”
Mr Buckley told Mr O’Shea that the court had already heard evidence from an expert in the Met Office who said the day of the murder was “dry and sunny” in Dublin. Mr O’Shea said it had been lashing rain when he saw O’Reilly.
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