No emotion on show as intimate texts revealed
The 52-year-old businessman showed no emotion as he sat at the front of the crowded courtroom, glasses perched on the end of his nose, as he pored over phone records, while prosecution lawyers read evidence about his regular mobile phone contact with his 31-year-old mistress, Jean Treacy, in the weeks before the death of his wife, Celine Cawley.
Day 5 of the trial was dominated by details of phone records between the accused and Ms Treacy – the beauty therapist whom he met at a salon in Howth.
The language used was one of young love with both parties regularly using terms of endearment – “babe”, “baby”, “angel” and “my love” – to describe each other. Most text messages were usually signed off with an “X”.
But they also hinted at the need for secrecy about the relationship.
Detective Garda Patrick Connell of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, explained how Lillis and Treacy used five different phones between them over a two-month period.
O2 and Meteor profited from the relationship, as there was an increased frequency of texts and calls since they first started communicating with each other on November 2, 2008.
In that month, 86 text messages, 18 calls and 4 multimedia messages were recorded between the pair.
The following month, both parties switched phone numbers and the regularity of contacts increased with 212 text messages and 86 calls being exchanged.
The exact contents of texts sent by Treacy to Lillis between December 14 and December 16, 2008, were read out and hinted at the unfurling drama which resulted from Ms Cawley’s death on the morning of December 15.
From texting her thoughts on the movie she had seen in a cinema and plans for a rendezvous with Lillis, Ms Treacy had become worried at the lack of replies from her lover on December 15 before informing him the following day that she would not “abandon” him and would see him at the funeral.
The court heard that Lillis told gardaí in an interview on December 21, 2008, shortly before he was formally charged with his wife’s murder, that the affair represented “a mid-life crisis”.
He also informed them that Ms Treacy had provided treatment for his back over the previous two years.
Lillis told gardaí that he had removed a SIM card from his phone because he hadn’t wanted her to become involved in the murder investigation.
Informed that his wife’s friends had described their marriage as sexless, Lillis replied: “Not entirely true.”
The suggestion that he was Ms Cawley’s “gopher” was rebutted as “very harsh”. Asked if he always did what he was told by his wife, he responded: “Not always.”
At one stage in the late afternoon as the pale winter sun lowered in the sky, it seemed to throw a spotlight on Lillis.
Not that anyone was in doubt about his identity as with every passing day of the trial, the number of people in court No 19 continues to grow.
Yesterday’s attendance, which strikingly included a high proportion of well-groomed women of a certain age who had arrived in small groups, swelled well beyond its official capacity of 170 with standing room only for most observers.
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