Elaine O’Hara became pregnant by bisexual man, court hears

The trial of Graham Dwyer has heard Elaine O'Hara became pregnant by a bisexual man and later had a miscarriage while in bed.

Mr Dwyer (42), an architect from Kerrymount Close in Foxrock, is charged with murdering childcare worker Ms O’Hara (36) on August 22nd, 2012. He has pleaded not guilty.

Ms O’Hara’s remains were found in forestry on Kilakee Mountain, Rathfarnham, on September 13th, 2013.

A statement was read into the record from Elaine Twomey, a friend of Ms O’Hara’s, said they had met at St Edmundsbury’s Hosptial, a psychiatric unit where they were both patients.

They would meet for coffee and go for walks in Stepaside and Marley Park. She said they were friends for 10 years.

She said Ms O’Hara talked about going online to meet partners for sex and said she had three or four regulars, though there was one man, “Adam”, who was “different” and he did not tie her up.

Ms Twomey said Ms O’Hara told her she liked to be tied up and cut by men as it would release the tension she was feeling. She also said Ms O’Hara told her about meeting a man at Starbucks in Dundrum in 2011 or 2012. She said when Ms O’Hara was depressed she would self-harm and told her she enjoyed it.

She also showed her scars on her stomach where she had cut herself with a knife.

Ms Twomey said she believed Ms O’Hara was “attention seeking and immature” and “there was always drama with Elaine”. She was shocked by her attitude to sex.

She said they met for coffee in the Market Shop, Belarmine, in January 2012 and Ms O’Hara was distressed.

She told Ms Twomey she had a miscarriage two or three days previously. She said she woke up in bed and there was blood everywhere and the mattress was soaked. She said she had been three months pregnant.

Ms Twomey said Ms O’Hara suggested she might ring the father, but she advised her not to. Ms O’Hara told her the father worked, was a nice guy, normal and bisexual, but was not “solely with her”.

Ms Twomey said Ms O’Hara started getting “too needy” and in April 2012 she was getting six calls and six texts a day from her. She said she told her to stop calling and texting her and deleted her phone number.

They saw each other one more time in August 2012 in the local shop. They both said hello and went their separate ways, she said.

A Nokia phone found by gardaí in the Vartry Reservoir in Wicklow used phone cell masts in Galway on the same day Mr Dwyer drove there, the Central Criminal Court also heard.

Sarah Skedd, crime and policing analyst with An Garda Síochána, said on July 4th, 2012, the Nokia 086 phone used cell masts in Galway City and on the same day, a small, blue car registered to Mr Dwyer was recorded at a toll booth on the M6, the road to Galway, at 12.45pm and at 2.15pm.

Ms Skedd said she analysed data, including telephone records for five phone numbers, Easytrip car tag records and documents from Mr Dwyer’s workplace, A&D Wejchert, such as timesheets, attendance records and holiday records.

She agreed with Sean Guerin SC, for the prosecution, the initial purpose of her analysis was to identify the user of one of the Nokia 086 phones recovered from the reservoir.

She said she noticed a lot of the texts, to and from that phone, occurred while it was in the Dublin 2 area, Monday to Friday. It also used phone mast cells in the evenings in South County Dublin, though “there were far fewer text messages in the evening”.

Ms Skedd agreed she focussed on July 4th 2012 and searched data, obtained from toll booth operators, for vehicles that went through the M6 toll booth and the M4 an hour later and that had an owner with an address in South County Dublin. She found a vehicle with registration number 99G11850, registered to Mr Dwyer.

She agreed with Mr Guerin that Mr Dwyer had admitted ownership of the vehicle and that he lived in South Co Dublin and worked in the Dublin 2 area.

Earlier, the court heard Mr Dwyer sent 847 text messages to Elaine O’Hara from his work phone over a two-year period.

Garda Paul Kane confirmed Vodafone records showed texts began on January 15th, 2008 and ended on December 4th, 2009. On one day, January 13th, 2009, Mr Dwyer sent 53 texts to Ms O’Hara from his work phone.

Ann Marie Lawlor BL, for the prosecution, took Garda Kane through an Excel document that listed the dates on which Mr Dwyer had made contact with Ms O’Hara.

On January 15th, 2008, Mr Dwyer texted Ms O’Hara 14 times, and on the 17th, he texted her 22 times. There were also a high number of texts on October 3rd and 24th and on November 13th and 15th.

On December 9th, Mr Dwyer called and left a message on Ms O’Hara’s voicemail. Garda Kane confirmed Mr Dwyer had “deliberately gained access to her voicemail” by putting a prefix of 5 before dialling Ms O’Hara’s number.

In 2009, the highest number of texts was sent on January 13th, when 53 were sent, and on June 12th, when 19 texts were sent. The last text was sent on December 4th.

Garda Kane agreed under cross-examination that he did not have any data to show whether the texts were responded to by Ms O’Hara.

A statement was also read into the court record with the agreement of the defence.

It was from a David McGovern, whose phone number had appeared on Ms O’Hara’s phone. He told gardaí he was a married man and used the websites fetlife and alt.com. He was interested in “no strings attached” sex.

He had never heard of Ms O’Hara, never met her and did not recognise her from a photograph shown to him. He did not recognise her user names on the websites; chained brunette and helpmelearn. He said he believed Ms O’Hara got his number from a website.

The trial continues.