The judge in the trial of Wayne O'Donoghue has told the jury that both legal teams had indicated to him they would be bringing a motion for contempt of court against the editor of one national newspaper over the coverage of the case.
Wayne O'Donoghue arriving in court yesterday
Mr O'Donoghue (21) is charged with the murder of 11-year-old Robert Holohan, his neighbour, on January 4th at his home in Ballyedmond, Midleton in Co Cork.
At the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, judge Paul Carney also read out a section of the transcript of the opening day of the trial to counter what O'Donoghue's legal team said was the spin being put on it.
In the transcript, senior counsel Shane Murphy said O'Donoghue had went to his garden shed, poured petrol into a coke bottle and decided to return to Robert's body at Inch Beach to remove the plastic bags and burn them.
When O'Donoghue eventually found the plastic bag covering Robert's body, he poured petrol on it and tried to set it on fire. It partially lit.
Earlier Judge Carney warned of "extraordinary inaccuracies" in media coverage.
At the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, the judge warned the jury that they must try the case only on the basis on the evidence presented in court.
"The only people who are present in the trial from beginning to end and hear every word of it are the 12 of you, myself and the accused man," he said.
"You must try the case strictly on evidence as heard by us in the court."
Mr O'Donoghue has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Robert Holohan but guilty of manslaughter.
The body of the schoolboy was found dumped near an isolated beach eight days after he disappeared while playing with his BMX bike outside his home in Midleton.
Mr Justice Carney made his intervention following a discussion with Mr O'Donoghue's legal team.
He said there had been saturation coverage of the first day of the trial yesterday.
"There have been some extraordinary inaccuracies coming across," he said.
He said this included innocuous examples such as a report which stated that Mr O'Donoghue had been arraigned after the swearing in of the jury, when it had been the other way round.
"There are many more examples. I'm not going to go into it," he said. The jury is expected to begin hearing evidence in the case later today.