Jury to return tomorrow to continue deliberations in Richard Satchwell murder trial

The jury has been asked to be unanimous in their verdict

There are three verdicts the jury can return on Richard Satchwell (centre); guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty. File picture

The jury in the trial of Richard Satchwell, who denies murdering his wife before hiding her remains beneath their Cork home, will continue their deliberations into a fourth day at the Central Criminal Court on Friday.

The panel of five men and seven women began considering their verdict at 3.05pm on Tuesday afternoon and have so far spent a total of eight hours and 37 minutes deliberating in their jury room in the Criminal Courts of Justice building.

The jury returned to the courtroom at 3.46pm on Thursday and a note was handed up to the judge from the foreman. The note said the panel would like to cease their deliberations for the evening and return to the Central Criminal Court on Friday at 11.30am to resume.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott told the 12 jurors there was "no difficulty about that".

Before sending the jury out to begin their deliberations on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Justice McDermott asked them to consider all the evidence in the case. He said if he had omitted any piece of evidence, they should "go on what's important" to them.

Choice of verdicts

The judge had told the panel that there are three verdicts they can return in relation to the murder charge against Mr Satchwell, namely; guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty. He asked them to be unanimous in their verdict.

Mr Justice McDermott told the jurors that there were two routes to the verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter; on the basis that they were satisfied that there had been an unlawful killing but that Mr Satchwell did not have an intention to kill Tina or cause her serious injury, and also on the basis of partial self-defence.

The judge began charging the jury around midday on Monday in the trial of Mr Satchwell (aged 58), who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his 45-year-old wife Tina Satchwell - nee Dingivan - at their home address at Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork, between March 19 and March 20, 2017, both dates inclusive.

Mr Justice McDermott concluded his charge on Tuesday afternoon to the 12 jurors, having told them that they could consider the issue of self-defence.

The judge said the onus lay on the prosecution to prove that Mr Satchwell was not acting in self-defence. He said a scenario had been presented to the jury that the accused was attacked by Ms Satchwell and had sought to defend himself in the manner described in his interviews with gardaí.

He said if the jury decided the force used by Mr Satchwell was reasonable in the circumstances as he honestly believed them to be, then they must acquit him of murder and manslaughter and return a verdict of not guilty.

He said if Mr Satchwell honestly believed he used no more force than was reasonably necessary but the degree of force used was not what a reasonable person would have used, then he was not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

He said if self-defence didn't apply, then they could find the accused guilty of murder provided they were satisfied he intended to kill or cause serious injury.