Closing speeches are continuing in the trial of Tipperary farmer Patrick Quirke who denies murdering his love rival Bobby Ryan.
Mr. Quirke, a 50-year-old farmer from Breanshamore, is accused of murdering the local DJ sometime between June 3 2011 and April 30th 2013.
In April 2013, Patrick Quirke found Bobby Ryan’s remains in an underground run-off tank on Mary Lowry’s farm at Fawnagown, Co. Tipperary.
The prosecution described it as a “staged discovery” as his lease on his ex-lover’s farm was drawing to an end.
Ms. Lowry was in a relationship with Mr. Ryan when he went missing in June 2011, and it’s the State’s case that Mr. Quirke murdered him in an attempt to rekindle an affair he had with the widowed mother-of-three.
Defence barrister Bernard Condon resumed his closing speech today by warning the jurors of blindly accepting Ms. Lowry’s evidence.
He accused her of manipulating her evidence and asked them not to allow themselves to look through this own prism presented by the other side.
He urged them to be “very, very careful” of her and her attempts to do down his client.
He claimed the evidence of murder in this case is “thin” and said circumstantial evidence isn’t an excuse to take shortcuts.
