Geoghegan trial awaits verdict

The jury in the trial of the man charged with murdering rugby player Shane Geoghegan will resume its deliberations on Monday …

The jury in the trial of the man charged with murdering rugby player Shane Geoghegan will resume its deliberations on Monday morning.

Barry Doyle (25) with addresses at Portland Row, Dublin; and Hyde Road, Limerick, told investigating gardaí that he shot the 28-year-old.

However in his trial, the father-of-three has pleaded not guilty to murdering him, arguing that he was induced into the confession.

Mr Geoghegan was shot dead in a suspected case of mistaken identity near his home in
Clonmore, Kilteragh, Dooradoyle, Limerick on November 9th, 2008.

The jury today heard from the prosecution, defence and the trial judge before beginning to deliberate.

Seán Guerin SC, prosecuting, said that Mr Geoghegan had been on his way home that night, "perfectly inoffensively and entirely innocently", when he had been gunned down unjustly.

"There's no question that it was murder," he said in his closing speech. "The question is: Was Barry Doyle the person who committed the murder?"

He said that three features proved that his admissions in custody in February 2009 were truthful, the first being a sketch of the scene that Barry Doyle made.

"If you superimpose it on the map you have, it matches the scene," he said.

He said that neighbours saw the car the defendant used parked exactly where he said it was parked.

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He noted that Mr Geoghegan would have been walking home in the direction Mr Doyle said he was, and that ballistics evidence tallied with where the accused said he was standing when he fired the shots.

He said the second detail was that all the defendant could remember seeing in the garden
where he shot the victim were bins. He pointed to the crime scene photographs, which showed nothing but a bin in the garden.

Mr Guerin then mentioned the jacket that the deceased was wearing that night.

"He said Shane Geoghegan had it pulled up around his face," he pointed out, reminding the jurors that this was the type of collar on the victim's jacket, which they would have in the jury room.

He reminded the jury of the post-mortem evidence that there was a hole in this collar in line with the hole in Mr Geoghegan's hat and the gunshot wound in the back of his head.

"Even after all the evidence, if you still have any doubt, put your finger in the hole in that jacket and you'll believe," he said.

Defence barrister Martin O'Rourke asked the jury what Barry Doyle had told the gardai that they hadn't already told him, referring to evidence they had put to him in three days of
interviews before the admissions.

He said it was the defence's case that there was psychological pressure, coercion and
inducement and that his client was the victim of threats and promises.

He said that the defendant's solicitor had done a deal with the gardaí that if he admitted to the murder, the mother of his sick child, Victoria Gunnery, would be released from custody.

"Do the right thing. Don't keep Vicky away from the young one any longer than she has to be," he quoted from a memo of interview.

"What could that mean other than 'Tell us what we want to hear and Vicky will be released'?" he suggested. "There's the threat and the promise."

Mr Justice Paul Carney told the 11 jurors to have due regard to the fact that there was no corroboration with the interviews.

However, he told them that if they all agreed beyond a reasonable doubt that Barry Doyle was guilty, then they could convict him.

The six men and five women deliberated for two hours and 35 minutes before being sent home for the weekend. The 12th juror was excused when his father became critically ill.