O’Brien admitted he was ‘a wife beater’

A WATERFORD man accused of murdering his wife told gardaí he would not have brought the man she kissed back to the house the night before she disappeared, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

Bus driver, John O’Brien, aged 41, with an address in Ballinakill Downs, Co Waterford, denies murdering Meg Walsh, aged 35, on a date between October 1, 2006, and October 15, 2006.

Detective Garda Declan O’Brien told Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that when O’Brien was asked what he would do differently about the weekend his wife disappeared, he replied: “I would come home at a reasonable hour without Owen Walsh.”