Jury expected to reach verdict tomorrow

A jury is expected to retire to reach a verdict tomorrow on the 25th day of the trial of a Corkman accused of the rape and murder of Rachel Kiely in a park in Ballincollig in October 2000.

Yesterday, in the Central Criminal Court, barrister Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC spent his second day making a closing speech on behalf of the accused, an 18-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The accused denies the rape and murder of Ms Rachel Kiely, aged 22, at the Regional Park, Ballincollig, Co Cork on October 26, 2000.

His behaviour immediately after the rape and murder was not in keeping with guilt, his lawyer told the jury yesterday.

He said it ran "counter to the notion that sometime shortly before that, he had turned into a monster, accosted Rachel Kiely and raped and murdered her".

The jury has heard that on the evening Rachel Kiely's body was found, the accused went with friends to a location where he recovered a vehicle licence plate, which he held it up against his motorbike to see if it would fit.

The motorbike, which he had been driving without tax and insurance, was far smaller than the over-sized licence plates, and he and his friends had shared a laugh about that.

"You have to ask yourself, could someone laugh and skit as normal if he had done such a thing a short time before", Mr O'Carroll asked the jury.

The prosecution has called DNA and fibre evidence to link the accused to the deceased, but the defence lawyer has attacked that evidence.

He said that some garda witnesses responsible for its collection and delivery appeared in the witness box with a "trust us" approach to their evidence.

That was "just not good enough", Mr O'Carroll said.