The prosecuting barrister in Patrick Quirke’s murder trial has suggested to the jurors that they will be compelled to return a guilty verdict.
The 50-year-old farmer from Breanshamore, Co. Tipperary denies murdering local DJ Bobby Ryan sometime between June 3 2011 and April 30th 2013.
It is the prosecution’s case that Patrick Quirke murdered Bobby Ryan in an attempt to rekindle an affair he had with a woman called Mary Lowry – from whom he leased farm land off.
She was in a relationship with Mr. Ryan when he went missing in June 2011 and it was the accused who found his body in what the prosecution claim was a “staged discovery” almost two years later.
Prosecuting barrister Michael Bowman began his closing speech to the jurors by inviting them not to look at Mr. Quirke as a jealous lover who took the life of Mr. Ryan but rather a loving and caring father and husband, and to critically analysis the evidence without sympathy for either side.
If they do so, he suggested they will be compelled to find him guilty.
All of the evidence in this case is circumstantial, but he said the human condition can only tolerate so much coincidence before it shakes its head.
He said it was his opinion that Mr. Quirke was undoubtedly still in love with Mary Lowry and wouldn’t accept it was over.
