Jury in Richard Satchwell trial told they can consider self defence

Alison O'Riordan

The jury in the trial of Richard Satchwell, who is accused of murdering his wife before burying her beneath their Cork home where her remains lay undiscovered for six years, have been told by the presiding judge that they can consider the issue of self-defence.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott began charging the jury on Monday in the Central Criminal Court trial of Mr Satchwell (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 19th and March 20th, 2017, both dates inclusive.

Commencing his charge, Mr Justice McDermott asked the jurors to approach the case with an open and independent mind and "without emotion and prejudice". "There are aspects of this case which are unseemly and perhaps shocking," he added.

The judge said that if the jurors found things to have aroused their indignation, feelings and emotions, they had to leave these outside the door of their jury room. He asked them to approach the case in a very careful and clinical way.

He said they must return a true verdict in accordance with the evidence and not with emotion, sympathy or empathy.

Mr Justice McDermott said the starting position was that Mr Satchwell is presumed to be innocent of the offence of murder and it was up to the prosecution to establish that he was guilty of the offence.

He explained that the standard of proof in the case was beyond a reasonable doubt, which is not a mathematical certainty but a very high standard; "the highest standard in the istration of justice".

The judge told the jurors that they knew Mr Satchwell had not given evidence in the case, and the accused was under no obligation to do so. "In of determining the case it has no relevance, as he has no obligation to prove anything".

When considering the evidence in the case, Mr Justice McDermott said the jury must take into the evidence they have heard from witnesses, statements read into the record as well as the exhibits and "lengthy media interviews" shown to them. "You are confined to what you hear in the courtroom, nothing else is relevant to you".

Mr Justice McDermott told the jury that they had heard gardai interviews with Mr Satchwell, firstly about his wife having gone missing and then his alleged involvement in her death.

The judge said it was a matter for them to determine what elements of those interviews they could rely on or were credible. "You can choose to accept part of, none of or all that is in the interviews".

He told the jurors that if they do not accept the accused's garda interviews, then they are to stand back and look at the rest of the evidence. "Don't go into default mode and proceed to conviction," he warned them.

Mr Justice McDermott said "lies had entered the case" and lies have a particular set of rules that apply in a criminal trial.

He said when a person tells lies, this may affect the assessment of the credibility of what they are saying, and it was open to the jury to accept or reject what the accused had said.

He said it was the prosecution's case that the lies told in Mr Satchwell's interviews with gardaí were particularly relevant to his state of mind and to his of what happened at the time his wife was killed.

The judge said it was claimed by the prosecution that Mr Satchwell told lies in both his earlier and later garda interviews to escape criminal liability for killing his wife, that he knew he was guilty of her murder and was avoiding responsibility by initially creating "a whole web of untruths" about her disappearance to hide what he had done.

He said it was also the State's case that the defendant told untruths in his interviews when the floor of his home was about to be excavated and "that the lies which he told indicated he was trying to avoid the guilt for the murder of his wife".

Cautioning the jury, Mr Justice McDermott said in some situations people tell lies in the course of a criminal investigation for reasons that have nothing to do with their guilt for the alleged offence.

He said panic and shame had been put forward by the accused for lies he told in relation to the "concocted " of Tina going missing and for the motivation for disposing of her remains.

He warned the jury to be careful when considering the accused's motivation for lying and said it is not always linked to a guilty mind.

The judge said the prosecution argued the accused's motive in carrying out the alleged murder was that Tina was going to leave him and had told him she had wasted 28 years of her life with him. "The motive put forward being his reaction to that to ensure that did not happen".

Mr Justice McDermott said for the jury to determine whether Mr Satchwell intended to kill or cause serious injury to Tina, they could determine his state of mind by looking at the surrounding circumstances including how the killing was carried out, the amount of violence or force used, what the accused said about what happened, what he told people in the immediate aftermath of the killing and what he did in the immediate and subsequent years following the killing.

He said if the jury were left with a doubt that Mr Satchwell intended to cause Tina's death or serious injury, then they were entitled to acquit him of murder and deliver a verdict of manslaughter.

Mr Justice McDermott said the jury had been invited to consider the issue of self-defence, and 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.

Mr Justice McDermott will continue his charge to the 12 jurors tomorrow morning.

The trial has heard that on March 24th, 2017, Mr Satchwell told gardaí that his wife Tina, had left their home four days earlier but that he had no concerns over her welfare, feeling she had left due to a deterioration in their relationship.

The accused formally reported Ms Satchwell missing the following May, but her body was not discovered for over six years, when gardaí in October 2023 conducting "an invasive search" of the Satchwell home,e found her decomposed remains in a grave that had been dug almost one metre deep underneath the stairs.

When re-arrested on suspicion of Tina's murder after her body was removed from their Cork home, Mr Satchwell told gardaí that his wife "flew" at him with a chisel, that he fell backwards against the floor and described her death after he said he held her off by the belt of her bathrobe at her neck.

The Assistant State Pathologist has told the trial that Tina's cause of death cannot be determined due to the skeletal nature of her remains.

Last Friday in her closing speech, Gerardine Small SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the jury that Mr Satchwell's narrative of how his wife died after he held her off by the belt of her bathrobe was "absolutely farcical" and had "more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese".

Ms Small submitted that the British truck driver had woven "a web of deceit" and continued his "fabricated narrative" over the years. Counsel said Mr Satchwell's objective from the very outset was "always to put everyone off the scent" and that this was done because he had murdered Tina.

In his closing address, defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC told the jurors that there was no doubt Mr Satchwell was guilty, but asked the jurors what exactly he was guilty of.

He argued that although the accused had lied "to the people of Ireland", the lies do not make him a murderer or relieve the prosecution of the burden of proving the ingredients of murder.