Eamonn Lillis told gardai and emergency services that he and his wife had been attacked by a masked man, the morning that she died.  Yesterday we heard that he admitted this intruder was a lie and that he was the only one present when his wife, Celine Cawley, suffered the injuries that lead to her death.

Today we heard the details of this lie in statements he had made to gardai in the hours and days following her death.  Over several statements he described a man around 5’11” like himself but wiry and strong.  He described the mythical burglar as wearing a dark grey bomber-type jacket, with darker sleeves, blue jeans and nylon looking gloves.  On his back was a rucksack and he was wearing a black balaclava or ski mask with a contrasting white line on it.

Mr Lillis said this man had been crouched over his wife when he returned home from taking their three dogs for a walk.  He said the intruder was holding a brick and crouched over a prone Celine on the decking outside the kitchen.  Painting himself as the hero of the piece, Mr Lillis said he had gone out to her roaring and fought with the attacker but slipped on the icy deck, allowing the masked intruder to make his escape.

Mr Lillis told gardai that they should make whatever investigations were necessary to catch the phantom and said that he just wanted the guy caught.  He repeated this wish when he rang gardai asking when he could return to his house, only to be told that garda forensics were still examining the scene.

Mr Lillis had also suggested that he knew who the mysterious intruder was.  He told gardai that his family had been burgled before and had suspicions then as to who the culprit was.  They had put a high fence around the large detached house after that.  Although the house was still visible from the public laneway that ran beside the house in Howth.

He told gardai his wife would have confronted any intruder. She was a fighter, he said, a tough nut.

The jury were also shown photographs of the injuries Mr Lillis had to his face and hands when the emergency services arrived.  His face was scratched and bruised and the nail on his wedding ring finger torn off.  The little finger on his right hand was bruised and bloody, as if, suggested defence counsel Brendan Grehan, it had been bitten.

The jury, judge and counsel saw the photographs but not the rest of us.  The lovely large screens that had been showing us the location photographs in an unexpectedly inclusive gesture yesterday, were black today and so any viewing had to be through craning necks and wriggling in seats.

It was a quiet enough day of evidence today.  This happens all the time in trials.  The stand out witnesses that make the story to be told after the verdict can end up all in one day with the remainder of the trial being repetitive procedural witnesses like most of today.  We’ll have to see how it goes tomorrow.