Irish Daily Mail

Accused was ‘very clean and very quiet’

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ONE of the first gardaí on the scene after the discovery of Bobby Ryan’s body noticed that Patrick Quirke was ‘exceptiona­lly clean’ despite working with slurry before the body was found.

Detective Inspector Pádraic Powell told jurors that he went to the Lowry farm at Fawnagown on April 30, 2013 after being informed that a body had been found.

He said at the farm, he met Patrick Quirke and his wife, Imelda. The couple were ‘sitting down close together’ on a low wall. Mr Quirke brought him to the tank where he had located a body. The tank was undergroun­d, covered by a concrete slab and there was a pipe from a slurry tank going down into it.

Det Insp Powell said he had to ‘physically kneel down’ to see into the tank. He saw the ‘outline’ of human remains covered in a transparen­t, algae-like substance. He said he observed that Mr Quirke was ‘extremely clean’ considerin­g he had been working with slurry before the body was found. His hands and clothes were clean, and he was ‘very quiet’.

Under cross examinatio­n, Mr Powell told defence barrister, Lorcan Staines SC, that he had ‘no doubt’ he was looking at a human body when he knelt down. He accepted he did not make a statement about what he saw that day, including about Scene: Det Pádraic Powell the cleanlines­s of the accused’s hands, until more than two years later, and made no notes at the time.

He accepted that he knew nothing about farming or slurry but that he had seen how his father-in-law looked after spreading slurry. ‘He [Patrick Quirke] was exceptiona­lly clean,’ he added.

His job was to preserve the scene and that he was present when the fire brigade removed the body.

Earlier, retired garda Tom Neville told the court that Mr Quirke’s wife Imelda phoned him on his mobile phone on April 30, 2013. He knew it was her because he had her number stored in his phone, having previously got to know her through the local hurling club. She told him a body had been found in a tank at Mary Lowry’s land. Mr Neville said he contacted Tipperary Garda station and asked them to go to Mary Lowry’s farm.

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