BRIAN KEARNEY had the motive and the opportunity to kill his wife, a jury in the Central Criminal Court at Dublin has heard as both counsel closed their cases.
Dominic McGinn, for the DPP, told the jury of eight women and four men yesterday they were now "centre stage" and had to decide if Mr Kearney was guilty or not guilty of his wife's murder.
Brian Kearney (51), Carnroe, Knocknashee, Goatstown, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, Siobhán Kearney (38), on February 28th, 2006.
Mr McGinn told the jurors he was seeking to persuade them of only one "inescapable conclusion", asking them to put out aside any sympathy they felt for either family. Mr Kearney had the motive, he had the opportunity and scientific evidence proved it was not suicide, he told the court.
Mr McGinn said Mr Kearney had motive to kill her because he was not in favour of the couple's planned separation and, while the defence did not necessarily say planning went into the killing, after it happened Mr Kearney had tried to "dress it up" as suicide.
He said Mr Kearney admitted it was only himself, his wife and their three-year-old son in the house at the time. He had also told gardaí he found it impossible to believe his wife would kill herself.
Most important of all, Mr McGinn added, was the scientific evidence which showed Ms Kearney did not take her own life. "If it wasn't suicide, the only reasonable explanation that fits in with all the evidence is that Mr Kearney killed Siobhán."
He told Mr Justice Barry White and the jury that unchallenged evidence in the case was a logical starting point.
Forensic accountant Toni Massey had outlined the Kearneys' financial situation.
"The bottom line with that, I suggest, is although Mr Kearney had a considerable number of assets and on paper he was worth a substantial amount of money, he was in a difficult position in that he was overstretched on borrowing."
He had received a letter from the bank telling him his borrowings needed to be reduced.
Their hotel in Spain had been on the market but had not sold and the logical position was to move into the garden home they had built and sell the family home or at least rent out the garden house. "The difficulty was the separation wouldn't fit in," Mr McGinn said.
He said letters from Ms Kearney's lawyer suggested it was her plan to move into the garden house next door to the family home. "That wouldn't lift the financial pressure on Mr Kearney because he wouldn't be able to sell the house, he wouldn't be able to let it out."
He said analysis of the security alarm on the home and DNA evidence was also unchallenged by the defence. While DNA evidence showed the major DNA on the vacuum flex found with Ms Kearney's body matched hers, the minor DNA match, which was male, could not be pinned to anyone.
Mr McGinn said this did not prove anything other than some male touched it at some time.
The home security alarm told them more, he said. It was activated the night before and deactivated at 7.40am, the morning Ms Kearney's body was found by her father. "There was no sign whatsoever of any break-in, no forced entry. The inference from that is that nobody from outside the household was involved in Siobhán Kearney's death because nobody else got in."
The jury had two options to explore, he said. Ms Kearney took her own life or she was murdered by Mr Kearney.
Mr McGinn said evidence showed Ms Kearney was making long- and short-term plans. She was planning her separation, making plans to hand over management of the hotel in Spain, organising to enrol their son in school, inviting a friend over to watch a rugby match and she was in good spirits when she had dinner with a friend the night before her body was found. She had also written a chatty e-mail to her brother's partner that night, "not something someone would write if they were going to kill themselves".
Scientific evidence showed she could not have killed herself, Mr McGinn added. If she had attempted to hang herself with the vacuum flex suspending her full body weight over the en suite door, testing showed the flex would have cleanly broken within five to seven seconds, allowing her enough time to "get up and walk away".
If it had been a low-level suspension, where only part of her body weight was suspended, Mr McGinn said, testing showed the weight was insufficient for it to cause a clean break in the flex.
State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy had said three breaks in Ms Kearney's neck were consistent with manual strangulation.
Mr McGinn said it suggested Mr Kearney had manually strangled his wife and then at some stage, started to use the vacuum flex as a ligature around her neck.
He must have decided to try and hoist her over the en suite door but discovered the second knot in the flex would not reach the door handle on the other side to anchor it.
Then the flex broke and, knowing her sister was arriving, Mr Kearney knew he could not be found with the body, Mr McGinn said.