After over 19 hours considering a verdict, the jurors in Patrick Quirke’s murder trial have been told they can return a majority verdict.
The Tipperary farmer denies murdering local DJ Bobby Ryan sometime between June 3rd 2011 and April 30th 2013.
The trial of 50 year old Patrick Quirke from Breanshamore began on January 23rd last.
It is the prosecution’s case that he murdered Bobby Ryan in an attempt to rekindle an affair he had previously with Bobby’s girlfriend Mary Lowry.
The part-time DJ went missing on June 3rd 2011 – his body was found by Patrick Quirke in an underground run-off tank on Ms. Lowry’s farm at Fawnagown on April 30th 2013.
The jury of six men and six women have been deliberating since April 23rd.
They have been told today by Justice Eileen Creedon at the Central Criminal Court that she will now accept a verdict of ten or eleven of the twelve jurors.
If they cannot reach at least a ten to two majority they can write “disagree” or “disagreement”.
