‘Our battle for legal assets was all for Georgia,’ – Celine’s family
THE brother and sister of the late Celine Cawley have called for legal reforms to prevent those who kill their partners retaining joint assets, following a long and expensive battle against killer husband Eamonn Lillis to secure a financial future for Celine’s daughter, Georgia.
Ms Cawley was killed by her husband Eamonn Lillis in their home in Howth, Co. Dublin, in 2008. Her siblings, Chris and Susanna Cawley, were involved in a protracted legal dispute with her killer, over control of the joint assets held by the couple.
Lillis, 61, despite being convicted of manslaughter, maintained he was entitled to ownership of assets he jointly held with his wife, including the Howth family home and a house in France. He was allowed to keep 50% of the couple’s Irish assets.
The siblings were speaking at domestic abuse charity Women’s aid conference on femicide yesterday.
‘Our case was about securing financial security and a future for Celine’s daughter,’ Susanna Cawley told the conference.
‘The killer decided that he was entitled to retain full ownership of all the assets which had been owned jointly with Celine, the family home in Howth and a home they owned in France,’ her brother Chris said.
The legal fight was a ‘complex and emotionally draining process which continues today’, he added.
The siblings called for legislation so that an individual with joint assets would be prevented from financially benefiting from the assets if they killed the other joint owner.
Following legal action in the High Court, the outcome of the case was a 50/50 split of Celine and Lillis’s joint assets, with the portion of Celine’s assets passing to her daughter.
In separate legal action in France, the family secured all of the joint assets to pass to Celine’s daughter.
They said in Ireland the High Court proceedings lasted four years and seven months with legal costs coming to €187,000, while the French proceedings took one year, seven months with legal costs of just €16,000.
‘We wonder how many femicide victim’s families are out there today trying to get on with their lives in the knowledge that the man who killed their mother, sister, daughter, is going to walk out of jail some day and settle back into the family home as if nothing had happened,’ Susanna told the conference. The family have since campaigned for the introduction of ‘Celine’s Law’ to prevent people convicted of manslaughter from benefiting from their crimes.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail after the conference yesterday, Mr Cawley said: ‘The importance of what we are talking about, is the reality that people are being confronted with and I think the Minister (Regina Doherty) said it very well: there is a culture of violence towards women that needs to be challenged and everyone has a responsibility on that.’
Ms Cawley was just 46 when she was killed at her home,
Her death was high profile at home and abroad as she was a former model who had appeared in a James Bond movie, and ran a successful film production company.
Lillis was let keep 50% of the assets