By Eoin Reynolds
The barrister for a farmer accused of murdering his aunt has asked a jury at the Central Criminal Court not to engage in speculation and to look at the evidence before them.
Michael Scott (58) of Gortanumera, Portumna, Co. Galway has pleaded not guilty to murdering Chrissie Treacy outside her home in Derryhiney, Portumna, Co. Galway on April 27, 2018.
The prosecution case is that Scott deliberately reversed over Chrissie Treacy in an agricultural teleporter following a long-running dispute over land.
Scott’s lawyers have told the Central Criminal Court that her death was a tragic accident.
Closing speech
In his closing speech to the jury, senior counsel Paul Greene said that the defence evidence regarding how Chrissie Treacy died was more persuasive than that of the prosecution.
He said it raised a reasonable possibility that her death was accidental, adding that “in any event the prosecution has failed to prove its case” to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.
He asked the jury not to look at the case from the perspective that Michael Scott is a “monstrous person” but to approach the evidence coldly and without fear nor favour.
The defence barrister said that the important thing in the case is what Michael Scott was thinking and what his intention was at about 3:15p.m on April 27, 2018 when Chrissie Treacy died.
Greene said that it is of particular significance that there was no evidence of a disturbance in Chrissie Treacy’s home.
While the evidence of several witnesses was that Chrissie Treacy would only leave her home on the rarest of occasions, he said there was no evidence of how she came to be in the yard or when she entered the yard.
He asked the jury not to engage in speculation and asked them to look at the evidence of Dr. Mark Jordan, an engineer and expert in collisions between people and motor vehicles who was called by the defence.
Dr. Jordan told the jury that Chrissie Treacy was knocked down when the vehicle struck her on the thigh and that all her injuries were caused by the rear wheel hitting her hand and then the front wheel running over her and causing the crush injuries.
Prosecution experts had suggested that she was twice run over and that degloving injuries to her left hand could have been caused by an “aggressive” change in direction from reverse to forward causing the wheel to spin on her arm.
Murder trial
Earlier, in his closing speech to the jury, senior prosecuting counsel Dean Kelly, said that Michael Scott had told big lies, little lies and enormous lies about his relationship with Chrissie Treacy in the lead-up to her death.
The murder trial heard claims that he also lied about how her decision to partition 140ac of land they jointly owned would impact his farming business.
Kelly said that the intensity and toxicity of the relationship between Chrissie Treacy and her nephew was increasing with every passing week in the build-up to her death.
He said there was evidence that Scott had made “clear and direct threats” to do harm to Chrissie Treacy.
Kelly told the jury that Michael Scott reversed the agricultural teleporter over his 76-year-old aunt in a “deliberate act of murder out of a sense of entitlement and for revenge”.
Justice Caroline Biggs will deliver her charge to the 15-person jury today (Wednesday, March 22).
Following her charge, three members of the jury will be selected by lottery and will be discharged before the other 12 begin their deliberations in the murder trial.