Murder trial hears laptop revealed search for ferry times
A MURDER trial jury has heard how a laptop seized from the accused man’s home was used to search ferry times hours before he shot his friend and dismembered his body.
Paul Wells Sr, aged 50, has admitted shooting dead Kenneth O’Brien and dismembering his remains.
But the father of five has pleaded not guilty to murdering 33-yearold Mr O’Brien in January 2016.
Detective Cliff Cullen of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau yesterday told the Central Criminal Court he examined a forensic image of an Acer laptop seized from Mr Wells’s home.
He said he examined the laptop using forensic software including a tool called AXIOM.
Detective Cullen confirmed that search terms used around 4pm on January 15 included: ‘Irish Ferries times from Dublin’ and ‘Irish Ferries Timetable’.
He was also able to say the user profile, Paul, had visited the Irish Ferries website around that time. It had accessed a number of pages within that website, including ferry schedules for ‘UK to France from Ireland’, ‘Rosslare to Cherbourg’ and ‘Dublin to Holyhead’, the court heard.
The jury also heard how a CCTV system in the home shared by Mr O’Brien, his partner and child had stopped recording a day or two beforehand.
Detective Declan O’Brien agreed with Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, that the system had four outdoor cameras.
The system had recorded continuously from at least three of those cameras from midnight on January 7 until it stopped at 4.32am on January 13. It had come back on for just over a minute before midday on January 14.
That was the last entry of recorded CCTV, he agreed.
He was then re-examined by Seán Gillane SC, prosecuting. Mr Gillane said: ‘You used a phrase there, “stopped”, as opposed to “turned off”.’
Detective O’Brien said: ‘Yes, there’s nothing being recorded. The screen goes blank. There’s no visible footage.’
Mr Gillane is expected to close the prosecution case this morning after Mr O’Higgins reserved his opportunity to cross examine Detective Garda Cullen until then.
Mr Wells, of Barnamore Park, Finglas, Dublin, claims Mr O’Brien had wanted him to murder Mr O’Brien’s partner so the man could take their child back to Australia where he had previously lived.
The trial continues.