AWAITING HIS FATE

THE prosecution in the Eamonn Lillis murder trial yesterday urged the jury to convict him of the murder of his wife Celine Cawley on December 15, 2008.

Mary Ellen Ring BL, for the prosecution, told the jury “remorse does not undo an intention” and an intention can be formed at a click of the fingers, and acted on.

“An opportunity arose and Mr Lillis took up the brick and hit Celine Cawley three times with moderate force,” she said, before he “methodically” walked through the house, cleaned his hands and watch and put away camera equipment.

Ms Ring said Lillis made contradictory statements regarding the position of his wife on the decking of their home in Howth on the day of her death.

One of the ambulance staff on reaching the house commented that Ms Cawley was colder than might be expected.

Ms Ring said Lillis had not reported having blacked out that day but the next day voluntarily rang the gardaí about the black-out “because he knew he had a problem with timing”.

Ms Ring said he waited until cross-examination before explaining how his wife’s blood ended up on the chest area of some of his clothes.

She said the lie he told about the would-be intruder meant the jury would have to look at Lillis’s credibility. The court heard that he even pointed the finger at someone else as a possible suspect.

She said the lie was not to protect his daughter, but instead an act of “self- preservation”. He first lied to gardaí about the affair he was having with Jean Treacy, the court heard, and Ms Ring said yesterday the three injuries to Celine Cawley’s head were not, in the view of Assistant State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis, consistent with one fall, or three separate falls.

Mr Lillis denies the charge.