What the jury didn't hear during Satchwell murder trial

RTÉ News​

3 days ago

Richard Satchwell's trial was initially scheduled to sit in his home county of Cork but due to the "intense publicity" surrounding the case, his lawyers applied late last year to move the trial to the capital.
The move was resisted by the State, who pointed out that much of the publicity was generated by Satchwell himself.
In November last year, Brendan Grehan SC, for Satchwell, said that as the media attention was concentrated in Cork, it would be "impossible to retain an impartial jury" there who had not heard of the case and formed "adverse views of Mr Satchwell".
Mr Grehan said that most trials can be held in local venues but some generate media attention that can be "macabre" and lead to "greater hostility than it is possible to imagine in an ordinary case."
Satchwell's preference, Mr Grehan said, was for the trial to be held in Limerick so it would be closer to the prison where he was being held.
"He has a position of responsibility there, which enables him to be a productive prisoner," counsel told the court.
Gerardine Small SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, opposed the change of venue, arguing that publicity around the case was national, not local.
Also, she said, much of that publicity was generated by Satchwell who "sought the attention of the media" by appearing on radio and television shows.
Ms Small pointed to Satchwell's appearances on RTÉ's 'Prime Time', TV3's 'Ireland AM', the Ray D'Arcy Show and the numerous interviews he gave to journalists.
She added: "It is an unusual factor that it [the media attention] can be attributed to the accused man while he was aware the body of his wife was buried where it was."
Mr Justice Paul McDermott agreed to change the venue to Dublin, due to the significant risk of an unfair trial. He said: "The high degree of local coverage and engagement with the case takes it out of the ordinary".
Satchwell's 'cryptic' reply
During the trial and in the absence of the jury, Mr Grehan applied to exclude Satchwell's "cryptic" reply of "Guilty or not guilty, guilty" when he was formally charged with the murder of 13 Tina on October 2023.
Counsel said a second part of the application, which was "somewhat of a side show", was connected to the fact that a member of the press, Paul Byrne, formerly of Virgin Media News, tweeted that Satchwell was going to be charged before gardaí had actually done so.
He said Superintendent Anne Marie Twomey had received directions from a legal officer at 7.28pm to charge Satchwell with the murder of his wife and he was formally charged at 8.07pm on 13 October.
Mr Grehan said Mr Byrne had tweeted at 8.03pm that "a man in his 50's had been charged with the murder of Tina Satchwell" - four minutes before his client was formally charged.
Counsel said Michael O'Toole, of The Irish Daily Mirror and Irish Daily Star, had "retweeted" at 8.09pm from the handle @mickthehack that "Richard Satchwell had been charged with the murder of his wife".
A number of gardaí who were called to give evidence in the voir dire denied that they had contacted anyone in the media but accepted that Mr Byrne had tweeted about it several minutes in advance and that Mr O'Toole had named Satchwell as being charged two minutes after it occurred.
Mr Grehan said it was "implicit" that contact was made with a number of people in the media "to enable them to do their job".
Counsel also submitted that Satchwell should have been informed that he could consult with his solicitor before the charging process took place and was entitled to legal advice "at this critical juncture".
"It vitiated the process and the court should not permit the fruits of the charging to be now available to the prosecution," he added.
He said the defendant's solicitor Eddie Burke had left the garda station at 7.07pm that evening and did not arrive back until 8.10pm, three minutes after the charging took place.
The lawyer said his client's reply after caution was more prejudicial than probative and would create difficulties in terms of how the jury could be properly directed.
In reply, Ms Small said Satchwell, who was interviewed by gardaí on ten separate occasions, had a "full appreciation of his entitlement not to say anything" in reply to the caution and was acutely aware of this.
The defence, she said, was claiming there is an entitlement to have a solicitor present on charging and she wasn't aware of any such entitlement.
She said the entitlement was to legal advice, which Satchwell had received "in abundance".
She called the media tweets "completely irrelevant".
In his ruling, Mr Justice McDermott said the defendant's reply was fully voluntary and found that the absence of a solicitor in the garda station had not impaired the fairness of the process.
He refused to exclude the reply to charge.
Defence asked judge to withdraw murder charge
When the prosecution's case was at an end, Mr Grehan applied to the judge to withdraw the charge of murder against his client, submitting there was no evidence of an intention to kill or cause serious injury, which he said was "a huge lacuna" in the State's case.
"It is one of the elements of the offence of murder which the prosecution have to adduce evidence of, which they have singularly failed to do," he argued.
He said Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster couldn't give a cause of death due to a very long post-mortem period and had confirmed there were no broken bones in Tina's body.
He said she wasn't able to conclude anything about the state of the organs due to the lapse of time.
Mr Grehan said there was an explanation available to the jury as to how death was caused in the case without the evidence of the pathologist or anthropologist and that explanation was given by his client, where Satchwell said the belt of Tina's bathrobe had been held up against her neck until she collapsed.
Counsel said this was the only account available as to what happened to Tina and was of "immense importance" as there was no evidence of violence discovered in the post-mortem.
Counsel said it was significant that Tina's hyoid bone was unfractured. He said there was also no medical evidence to say that his client's account of holding Tina off with a restraint against her neck before she collapsed suddenly was not possible.
In reply, Ms Small submitted that there was "a wealth of evidence" from the surrounding circumstances in the case from which intent could be inferred.
Counsel said the deception began on 20 March 2017 very shortly after Satchwell killed Tina and the plethora of lies were an acknowledgement of guilt.
Ms Small said a limited post-mortem examination was conducted because the defendant had buried his wife in a manner to ensure the cause of death wasn't available.
She added: "There is also motive on his own account, Satchwell says she is threatening to leave him. She has wasted 28 years of her life, that is all part of the evidence for the jury to accept or not".
Mr Grehan said the lies told were not sufficient to show intent for murder.
Referring to motive, he said there was also clearly a basis for which Tina might have wanted nothing further to do with her husband and attacked him in that manner.
In his ruling, Mr Justice McDermott said Satchwell's immediate response was to create a false impression that Tina was alive and he had taken every conceivable step to protect himself.
He said Satchwell told lie after lie "to any journalist who'd indulge him" and portrayed a scenario that his wife had deserted him suddenly without any explanation.
Mr Justice McDermott said Satchwell had shown a degree of malevolence towards his wife and the defendant was totally focused on protecting himself from discovery.
There had been, he said, a period of six prolonged years before Tina's body, of which Satchwell had disposed of, was found and this was relevant to the issue of intention.
He said it was a matter for the jury as to whether Satchwell had formed the requisite intent and whether he was guilty of his wife's murder.
He rejected the application to withdraw the murder charge.
Counsel voiced opposition to tone of judge's charge to jury
At the very end of the trial, when Mr Justice McDermott had finished charging the jurors, Mr Grehan said on foot of instructions from his client he "regrettably" had to seek the discharge of the jury.
Counsel voiced his opposition to the tone of the charge, which he said was intended to "nudge" the jurors towards a guilty verdict.
Counsel said he became increasingly concerned as the charge proceeded that it was not resembling a charge but a "second prosecution speech" in terms of the emphasis the court was placing on the State's case to the detriment of the defence.
Mr Grehan told the judge he had not put the defence case in full at all to the jury.
He said the two separate tasks of directions on the law and a summary of the evidence had become "intermingled" and submitted there was no balance in what had been said to the panel.
"The whole emphasis of what was said to the court seemed to be to reiterate the prosecution case," he argued.
Mr Grehan said the facts of the case "shouted and screamed for themselves" in terms of what Satchwell did and didn't do.
"They are not facts that need to be nudged or pushed for the jury in any particular way," he said.
Counsel said it was beyond remedy at this stage and the court should discharge the jury.
Ms Small called Mr Grehan's application "wholly inappropriate", describing the charge as balanced, fair and extremely comprehensible.
"The criticism is unfounded, a court will rarely outline all the evidence, that is a matter for the jury," she said.
In his ruling, the judge said this was a difficult case in which to sum up the evidence for the jury and he did not accept that his charge was "so wildly unbalanced".
He disagreed that the absence of references to certain parts of the evidence in any sense justified the jury being discharged.
Mr Justice McDermott refused the application but did give the jury further directions in relation to two matters of which complaints were made, one relating to the detailed evidence of Lorraine Howard concerning her half sister Tina, the other to evidence that Satchwell loved or was "besotted" with his wife.