Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the “unforeseen and unforeseeable happens in everyone’s lives” and that he didn’t want to go into too much detail
Ruth Lawrence (45), who is originally from Clontarf in Dublin but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent in Co Meath has pleaded not guilty to murdering Anthony Keegan (33) and Eoin O’Connor (32) at an unknown location within the State on a date between April 22, 2014 and May 26, 2014, both dates inclusive.
Addressing the 12 jurors this morning, trial judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt said that late yesterday it came to the prosecution’s attention that a key witness – who is “significant to both sides in the case” – “is in a medical situation”. “That’s really all that needs to be said. We don’t have full details of that and it has to be ascertained,” he added.
He said: “The unforeseen and unforeseeable happens in everyone’s lives” and that he didn’t want to go into too much detail.
Ruth Lawrence
News in 90 Seconds – Tuesday, October 14
“When the details are ascertained, the parties will need to consider the information and how it bears on the availability of the witness and whether the trial can continue in their absence. There are a number of moving parts to all that,” continued the judge.
Mr Justice Hunt told the jury of four men and eight women that he may bring them in tomorrow morning but expected further information to be forthcoming.
The judge told the panel that he and the legal teams would come to court tomorrow in their absence and that he would bring them back on Thursday morning, when he had further information for them.
“I don’t want you to go guessing as to what might happen. We need to delve into the matter a little bit further,” he said.
Mr Justice Hunt apologised to the jurors but said there was nothing anyone could do and that “these things happen in the course of human affairs”.
The judge asked the panel to put the case to one side until Thursday morning.
In his opening address, Michael O’Higgins SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the State would argue that Ms Lawrence shot drug dealer Mr O’Connor and worked “as a unit” with her boyfriend to kill him and another man, with their bodies later found “bound in rope, tape and covered in tarpaulin” by fishermen on Inchicup Island on May 26, 2014.
Counsel for the State said the 12 jurors would hear evidence that the accused woman shot one of the two men but this was not immediately fatal and was “quickly followed up” by a shot from the defendant’s boyfriend, South African national Mr Neville van der Westhuizen.
The jurors were also told by Mr O’Higgins it is the prosecution case that the accused woman and her boyfriend had “spoken openly” about “the murders and disposing of the bodies”.