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.”

Last week the jury heard that Meg kissed Mr Walsh after a night drinking in their local, the bar of the Woodlands Hotel.

O’Brien admitted to gardaí that he was a “wife beater” in an interview read to the jury. The court has heard he assaulted Meg on September 20, less than two weeks before she disappeared. However, he told gardaí “I tell her a couple of times every day I love her.”

O’Brien denied taking Meg’s wedding ring and engagement ring, which were found in an ashtray in the house. Det Gda O’Brien disagreed with defence counsel Paddy McCarthy’s suggestion that the rings were consistent with “somebody leaving them behind when she was going out on Sunday night.”

“Meg Walsh would never go out anywhere without her jewellery.”

O’Brien denied that he was considering jumping into the River Suir on Sunday October 1, when he is shown on CCTV footage staring into the water not far from where his wife’s body was found two weeks later. He told gardaí he didn’t think about where her body would wash up after the high tide that weekend because he had not dumped her body. However, he told gardaí he knew “bodies float after seven to 10 days.”

O’Brien told gardaí he had taken Meg’s keys and spare keys away from her the night of the argument on September 20.

“On the Wednesday night Meg was hysterical and trying to get out of the front door. I took her keys off her. She had a spare key to the front door as well.”

O’Brien said he kept both sets of keys in his pockets overnight, but gave them back to her the following day.

He said that Meg must have put her main keys back in the pint jug where they kept spare keys. O’Brien gave gardaí a set of keys, including the key identified by experts as the main key to Meg’s Mitsubishi Carisma, after her disappearance. He said that he thought Meg had two car keys, both with a remote control fob.

The jury also heard from scenes of crime examiner Detective Garda Brian Barry, who told prosecuting counsel Mr Dominic McGinn that bloodstains were found in the boot of Meg’s car as well as on the driver’s seat, the outside of the door pillar on the driver’s side and the back bumper on the driver’s side.

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