Walsh's husband told gardaí a 'pack of lies', court hears

Meg Walsh's husband told gardaí a 'pack of lies' when they interviewed him about the murder of his wife, a garda witness has told a Central Criminal Court jury.

Inspector John Hunt told defence counsel Mr Paddy McCarthy SC, in cross examination, that John O’Brien had been consistently unhelpful.

He conceded that Mr O’Brien had made a voluntary statement to gardaí, but said: “He made a statement which, as far as I am concerned, is a pack of lies.”

“Initially Meg Walsh was just a missing person so obviously we took statements from various people to see what we could ascertain and each statement was taken at face value. But as we went on, it appeared that John O’Brien was telling lots of lies.”

Bus driver Mr O’Brien (aged 41) with an address in Ballinakill Downs, Co Waterford, denies murdering the 35-year-old mother of one on a date between October 1, 2006 and October 15, 2006.

Ins. Hunt told Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that mobile phone evidence would show that Mr O’Brien was not driving home shortly after 9pm on Monday October 2, the day after his wife was reported missing, as he had told gardaí.

In interviews with gardaí, Mr O’Brien said he had driven around Waterford after finishing work on Monday evening, looking for his wife’s car.

When gardaí told him that his phone had been “pinging” off the phone mast on the city centre Cove Centre, close to where Meg’s car had been abandoned, he suggested that one of the local masts must have been out of order.

In an interview on December 9 2006, Mr O’Brien said that he had been “stalking” Owen Walsh, a friend he had caught his wife kissing on the night before she disappeared.

He said he was convinced Mr Walsh had something to do with Meg’s disappearance and on October 2 he had parked his car in the Tesco carpark at about 8.30pm, before taking a short cut to Mr Walsh’s house.

Mr O’Brien said he spent between “20 minutes and half an hour” watching Mr Walsh’s house before driving home again.

He told gardaí he had not mentioned this in earlier interviews because he did not want them to know he had stalked Mr Walsh.

“I didn’t want you to think I was out to get her,” he said.

He disputed the suggestion that his phone signal put him near the car park of the Uluru Pub, where Meg’s car was abandoned at 10.03pm that evening, for 40 minutes.

Ins. Hunt told Mr Buckley that Mr O’Brien’s house alarm was not switched off until 10.11pm and it would have been impossible for him to enter the house without switching the alarm off.

He said Mr O’Brien had been shown CCTV footage showing him standing beside the River Suir on Sunday October 1 at 5.30pm.

Mr O’Brien told gardaí there was no contradiction in his account of his last conversation with Meg, back at the house at around 5.30pm. He said he had simply got the time wrong.

He said he had been “avoiding going back to the house”. The jury heard last week that Mr O’Brien said Meg had told him he drove her to kiss Mr Walsh because he did not pay her enough attention.

Ins. Hunt told Mr McCarthy that he was not suggesting that Mr O’Brien had been dumping Meg’s body in the Suir at this point but could easily have been looking for somewhere for this purpose.

Her body was recovered from the River not far from the spot Mr O’Brien was standing in the video, two weeks later.

Mr O’Brien told gardaí he had thrown out a steering wheel lock when he was clearing out the house some time before Meg disappeared.

The wheel lock was found in a bin Mr O’Brien asked gardaí to take out for the refuse collectors. In her evidence last week, State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy said she could not rule it out as the murder weapon.

Mr O’Brien told gardaí: “When I moved everything out of the room I must have put the Crook lock back in and thrown it out a few days later. It’s not the murder weapon like you are trying to make out.”

Gardaí also questioned him on why his DNA had been found on the wheel cover from the boot of Meg’s Toyota Charisma. Ins. Hunt told Mr Buckley that the DNA was found on the surface revealed when a blood stained portion had been cut away.

He said that the only way Mr O’Brien’s DNA could have got onto this surface was after it had been cut since it would not have been accessible until then.

Mr O’Brien told gardaí he could not have been seen by a witness acting suspiciously near where the cut away section of the spare wheel cover and a cut away section of a mat, also from Meg’s car, had been found. He said he did not know the witness and he had not disposed of the bloodstained pieces.

He admitted to gardaí that he had washed his work trousers that week but had not boil washed them to get any blood stains out.

He said he used the washing machine in the house to wash the duvet cover at 40 degrees.

He told gardaí that the dial must have landed at the 90 degree mark it was found pointing to when the cycle had finished.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Barry White and the jury of seven men and five women.