‘His hands and clothes were very clean for a farmer taking slurry out of a tank’

PAT QUIRKE’S hands and clothes were “extremely clean” for a farmer who had been working with slurry that morning, the first garda at the scene noted.

The trial heard how Mr Quirke’s wife, Imelda, telephoned a garda she knew through under-12s hurling training to tell him that a body had been discovered on the farm.

Inspector Padraic Powell told the trial at the Central Criminal Court that he was first at the scene on April 30, 2013, at the farm at Fawnagowan, Co Tipperary, shortly after 1.10pm.

Patrick and Imelda Quirke were sitting close together on a low wall at the back of the property, he recalled.

Mr Quirke indicated where he had found the body, in an underground tank covered by a concrete slab. There was a pipe from a slurry tank going down into it, he said.

“I didn’t get into conversation other than that there was a body in the tank,” Insp Powell told the court.

As the officer in charge at the time, his role was to preserve the scene, he said. He went to the tank but initially could not see anything until he knelt down and saw “what appeared to be the outline of human remains in the tank”.

However, the visibility “wasn’t great” and the body was “semi-covered with contents” within the tank, with an overgrowth of “semi-transparent algae”.

He described what he saw as “more of a silhouette”.

Asked if he had noticed anything about Mr Quirke, Insp Powell said: “My observation was that he was extremely clean for that part of the afternoon. His hands and clothes were very clean.”

Mr Quirke was “very quiet”, he said.

Michelle and Robert Ryan, children of the deceased man, Bobby Ryan, left the court as photographs were put up on screen, having been warned by Judge Eileen Creedon that the evidence could be distressing.

Under cross-examination by Lorcan Staines, Insp Powell said: “In context of what he was meant to be doing – taking water or slurry out of the tank – his hands were very clean.”

Retired Garda Tom Neville told Michael Bowman SC for the prosecution that Imelda Quirke phoned him on his mobile phone on April 30, 2013. She told him a body had been found in a tank at Mary Lowry’s land. He told Ms Quirke not to touch anything and dispatched officers.