ACCUSED ‘FAILED TO MENTION TANK WHERE BODY WAS’
Garda tells murder trial he asked Patrick Quirke how many tanks were on the farm shortly after DJ Mr Moonlight went missing
PATRICK Quirke told a garda who visited the Lowry farm after Bobby Ryan’s disappearance there were only two tanks on the farm, a court has heard.
Mr Ryan’s body was discovered almost two years later in an underground water tank – separate to the two tanks on the land that gardaí had been made aware of.
Garda Conor Ryan was giving evidence in the trial of Mr Quirke, who is accused of murdering Bobby Ryan, a part-time
DJ known as Mr Moonlight.
Mr Quirke of Breanshamore, Co. Tipperary, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan at an unknown location on a date between June 3, 2011, and April 30, 2013.
Mr Ryan’s body was discovered by Mr Quirke on Mary Lowry’s farm at Fawnagowan, Co. Tipperary.
The trial has previously heard that Ms Lowry, Mr Ryan’s thengirlfriend, had leased the land where the body was found to Mr Quirke, who she previously had an affair with.
Garda Conor Ryan told the court he took part in searches of the farm at Fawnagowan on June 7, 2011.
Some days later, he was told to go to the farm by his superiors and observe the slurry tanks being emptied by Patrick Quirke.
He said he was taken to two tanks on that occasion. One was a tank that collects waste through a slatted floor in a cattle shed. It had no slurry in it, Garda Ryan said. The other was an open tank which contained a ‘small quantity’ of slurry.
The witness said he spoke to Mr Quirke in relation to the existence of any other tanks.
‘I had a conversation with Mr Quirke,’ he said. ‘I asked him were they the only two tanks on the farm. He told me they were.’ He described Mr Quirke’s demeanour that day as ‘calm’. But, during cross-examination it was suggested that the question he had asked Mr Quirke was whether or not there were any other slurry tanks on the farm. Garda Ryan said he could have asked him that.
Garda Ryan told the court that he could not say on what exact date he attended the farm to witness the tanks being emptied, other than it was ‘shortly after’ the June 7 search. He could also not provide the date on which he was instructed to go.
He was shown a copy of the ‘jobs book’ which said the task was completed on June 7.
Asked if he was wrong about the date, he said no but he could not say what date the slurry tanks were emptied.
Asked when he made his statement about what happened that day, Garda Ryan said he could not say. Bernard Condon, defending, put it to him that it was much more likely the statement was made more than two years later. Garda Ryan said he could not say.
Mr Condon said Garda Ryan had made nine statements in all, some of which were undated. Asked who had requested the statement, Garda Ryan said the request had come from the incident room.
Mr Condon repeatedly asked him who had made the request, adding, ‘incident rooms don’t talk’.
Garda Ryan said the request would have ‘come through the channels’ and would have been made by one of two sergeants.
He told the court that he also visited the farm almost two years later when Mr Ryan’s remains were found in a disused run-off tank.
Garda Ryan said he looked into the run-off tank on this occasion and saw decomposing remains. He observed there were ‘no fresh marks on the inside of the tank’.
He saw a tractor attached to a vacuum tanker that had a pipe running from it into the tank.
The witness then told the court that he walked around the farm and into the slatted unit.
‘I observed an old tractor and an agitator [a type of slurry pump],’ he told the court.
He said he looked into the tank in the slatted unit and could see that the ‘material was heavily crusted at the time’.
He was then asked to move the tractor and vacuum tanker next to the underground tank where the body was found.
He told the court that he had chosen to do this because he was familiar with farm machinery, having grown up in a farming family.
Mr Ryan told the court that he noticed that the handle on the vacuum tanker was in ‘neutral position which indicated that it wasn’t sucking at the time’.
He said he emptied the contents of the vacuum tanker nearby and saw a quantity of dirty water run out of it.
During cross-examination he said he was not surprised to have been instructed to empty the contents of the vacuum tanker onto the ground at a crime scene.
Mr Condon asked if, ‘no-one thought to collect the contents of the tank at a murder scene? Out onto the ground it went?’
Garda Ryan said the contents of the tank were examined. When asked how, he said they had lifted up the handle and ‘went through what was coming out, the soiled water.’
Mr Condon asked: ‘Did you put your hand out? Did you even have a sieve? You didn’t even put a bucket underneath?’ Garda Ryan replied: ‘No.’ He was asked if he was wearing a forensic suit at the time and said he could not recall.
Earlier, a witness who assisted in the recovery of Mr Ryan’s remains said he saw no signs of panic when a concrete slab covering the underground tank broke.
Tony Chearnley, who is a retired garda, said he was asked to operate a mini digger to remove a concrete slab from the top of the disused run-off tank where the remains were found.
He agreed under cross-examination that the slab had broken as he removed it but said he did not see any signs of ‘pandemonium’ or ‘panic’, adding ‘if there had been, I would have been asked to stop’.
He agreed that the concrete breaking up was ‘not ideal’ but added: ‘We don’t live in an ideal world. It wasn’t ideal but that was the best I could do.’
Lorcan Staines SC for the defence asked the witness if there had been any discussions about waiting for a pathologist to arrive. Mr Chearnley replied: ‘I don’t think that would have been discussed with the digger driver.’
The trial continues.
‘Incident rooms don’t talk’ ‘You didn’t even have a bucket?’