The Graham Dwyer murder trial has heard gardaí showed his son CCTV stills from Elaine O'Hara's apartment block to see if he could identify anyone in the footage.
Mr Dwyer (42), a south Dublin architect from Kerrymount Close in Foxrock, is charged with murdering childcare worker Ms O’Hara (36) in Co Dublin on August 22nd, 2012. He has pleaded not guilty.
Ms O’ Hara’s remains were found in the Dublin mountains on September 13th, 2013.
Detective Garda Paul Corcoran testified that on October 18th, 2013, he showed stills from the footage to Sennan McShea.
“We were aware that Sennan McShea was the son of Mr Dwyer and the purpose was to see if he could identify anybody in the footage,” he explained.
The detective identified three stills signed by Mr McShea.
“He would have seen all the stills in the booklet and would have selected the ones he was confident with,” he said.
The detective also told the jury he showed photograhs of clothes, including a hoodie and a vest, to members of Ms O’Hara’s family.
“They were in a position to say they were clothing she would have worn,” he said.
The Central Criminal Court also heard the majority of people seen on CCTV coming and going from the apartment building where Elaine O'Hara lived remain unidentified.
Sgt Kevin Duggan confirmed no other person was identified by name in the logs created by gardaí who examined the CCTV footage. There were “many, many” people coming and going from the 30 apartments in Ms O’Hara’s apartment block at Belarmine Plaza, Stepaside, the officer told the Central Criminal Court.
He agreed the Garda log only recorded the date and camera on which people were seen and whether they were male or female.
The jury had been shown footage of Mr Dwyer and Ms O’Hara on dates between January 18th and August 26th. About 11 officers viewed the thousands of hours of footage.
Under cross-examination from Ronan Kennedy BL, for the defence, Det Duggan acknowledged the Garda CCTV footage log recorded for June 29th, 2012, eight entries stating “unable to view”.
He said he “stood over” all footage viewed up to the time he was transferred from Dundrum Garda station on December 10th.
Up to then, there was no record of any difficulty viewing the footage, he said. Mr Kennedy highlighted a clip shown to the jury in which Ms O’Hara is seen exiting the complex door.
He said it appeared Ms O’Hara had managed to go downstairs or out of the lift without being captured by the CCTV.
Sgt Duggan responded that the CCTV expert had said the cameras contained motion sensors and “worked perfectly”.
He also confirmed that CCTV continued to be viewed by officers in January 2015, but he denied sightings allegedly of Mr Dwyer on April 6th, June 26th and July 9th, 2012, had been missed.
He also agreed the stairs and lift viewed in the CCTV footage in court were not the only ways in and out of Ms O’Hara’s building. He said different cameras were on different staircases.
It was “absolutely” possible to go up one staircase and down another, he said.
The trial continues.
