Husband was having an affair at time of his wife’s murder

A DUBLIN businessman accused of murdering his wife had begun an extra-marital affair just months before his wife’s violent death at their luxury home in Howth, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.

The murder trial also heard the accused, Eamonn Lillis, 51, now admitted that he had made up a story to gardaí at the time of her death that they had both been attacked by a burglar at their home. Lillis has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, Celine Cawley, 46, at their family home at Rowan Hill, Windgate Road, Howth, Co Dublin, on December 15, 2008.

Counsel for the defendant Brendan Grehan SC informed the court that Lillis now acknowledged he had lied to gardaí about the circumstances in which Ms Cawley had died. The court heard the couple, who ran a successful TV production company together, were alone in the house at the time of her death.