The jury in the case of a financial adviser charged with laundering over £3 million stg which the State says was taken in the Northern Bank robbery will resume their deliberations tomorrow after they were sent home last night without reaching a verdict.
The jury trying the case of Ted Cunningham at Cork Circuit Criminal Court spent some three hours this afternoon considering the case against the 60-year-old financial adviser who denies ten counts of money laundering.
Judge Con Murphy told the jury of seven men and five women at 6.30pm that he was sending them home for the evening and he asked them to gather again at 10.30am tomorrow at the Courthouse in Washington Street in Cork to resume their deliberations in the case.
Judge Murphy, who spent over 11 hours summing up the case for the jury over the past three days, concluded his charge to them at 3.20pm yesterday with a warning that they must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on each charge if they are to convict Mr Cunningham.
"You, members of the jury, in assessing the evidence should have regard for what witnesses said and the demeanour of witnesses. Apply your own robust commonsense in deciding the issue," he said.
"There are ten separate counts. You must consider each count separately. We require from you ten separate and distinct verdicts. You may have considerable sympathy for various people in this case but you have to put any such sympathy out of your mind.
"Approach this issue as dispassionately as you can. This is the people of Ireland against Mr Cunningham, not the Northern Bank against Mr Cunningham or the gardaí against Mr Cunningham. I require from you a unanimous verdict on each of the ten charges."
In reply to a question from the jury on money laundering, Judge Murphy said that in order to convict Mr Cunningham they had to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that he possessed or used the money at issue in the case and that he knew or believed it to be stolen.
They furthermore had to be convinced, again beyond reasonable doubt, that the money was in fact stolen from the Northern Bank, said Judge Murphy who also answered a question from the jury regarding markings in a particular bank note.
In all, the jury heard evidence from some 75 prosecution witnesses and two defence witnesses while they were also given access to some 65 exhibits produced in the case which began on January 14th and is now in its tenth week.