The end of a `long journey'

"Elated would be the wrong word," Veronica Guerin's brother, Jimmy, said yesterday. None of the usual words of celebration seemed appropriate when the subject was the murder of your sister, he said.

"It has been a long journey with Ward. It is two years last month since he's been in custody." That journey started for Mr Guerin and his wife Lou-Ann in Kilmainham District Court in 1996 when Ward was first charged with conspiracy to murder. He remembers how Mrs Guerin walked up to someone in the packed courtroom to find out which man was Ward. The man she approached was Ward.

He has sat through all but a couple of afternoons of the 31 days of evidence. "I wanted to make a point of being there for her sake. But I also wanted to know what was going on. I think that is very important. I think the more people that are there for her the better. Ward's people were there supporting him every day."

Paul Ward sat expressionless in the dock, wearing a blue shirt and grey jeans. As Mr Justice Barr read the judgment for more than 90 minutes, Ward lifted his fine metal-frame glasses every now and then to rub the bridge of his nose.

As he left the dock he gestured to his girlfriend Vanessa that he would telephone her. Coming down the stone stairs from the gallery, Ward's family members mused on the judgment. "I thought it was going great and then there was a twist," one of his sisters said.

Graham Turley sat ashen-faced in his usual seat in the courtroom listening to the judgment. As Ward left the dock he turned and faced Mr Turley. Then Mr Turley spoke quietly into his mobile phone as the public gallery cleared. Afterwards he spoke to RTE's Joe Duffy, saying that he would not be happy until all of those responsible for his wife's death were in prison. Above him in the public gallery Sunday Independent editor Aengus Fanning had arrived to hear the end of the judgment.

The court was packed with more than 110 reporters, family members and interested members of the public.

"The circus has arrived," Ward's brother Patrick had remarked outside as the crowd crammed up against the railings to be allowed in three at a time. Then he warned the cameramen jostling to get shots of the family to stay out of his face.