O'Reilly case: Judge warns jury not to discuss case

Mr Justice White told the jury that counsel in the case had asked him to remind them not to discuss the case with anybody else because of the large amount of people who wait outside the court each morning to watch the day's proceedings.

"The case has attracted a large amount of interest and as you have seen, there are a considerable number of citizens who wish to come in and listen to it," he said.

He added: "You have seen the public gallery is full and the courtroom itself is full."

He said that because of concern with the lack of soundproofing in the jury room, the public were not allowed into the neighbouring balcony until the jury had taken their seats.

He explained: "That has resulted in a considerable number of people remaining around the round hall. We have people here from as early as 9am looking for a front-row seat, so to speak."

He said: "There is concern that somebody might inadvertently seek to discuss matters with one of your number and not realise that you are from the jury in this case."

He added there was "no unease" that this might have already taken place, but just alerted them to the possibility of this happening.

Today's evidence

Most of today's evidence was from an expert image analyst who said the car belonging to murder accused Joe O'Reilly "could be" the car seen in CCTV footage near the O'Reilly home on the morning of the murder.

Image analyst Andrew Laws, from Calligate Imagery Bureau in England, said gardaí gave him CCTV footage from the morning of the murder along with reconstruction images and asked to compare a number of vehicles.

He told prosecuting counsel Mr Dominic McGinn BL that he compiled three reports after analysing the footage.

Evidence from the first report related to CCTV footage from Murphy's Quarry, near the O'Reilly home.

On Monday, the court heard evidence that a car matching the description of Mr O'Reilly's navy-coloured Fiat Marea estate was seen from this camera on the morning of the murder.

The court also heard evidence that gardaí drove Mr O'Reilly's car past the Murphy's Quarry CCTV camera in an attempt to create comparative images to those they found from October 4.

Mr Laws said he compared the original footage from the morning of the murder with these "reconstruction" images made by gardaí.

However, he said: "A reconstruction is not a replication."

By making these comparisons, he was hoping to be able to use his expert knowledge to give an opinion as to the likelihood of the two vehicles being the same one.

Referring to the first set of images at Murphy's Quarry, he said there were a number of factors making it difficult for him to analyse the cars, including the quality of the images; the difference in the weather; the glare of the sun and angles.

He said "overall" he would describe the original imagery as "fair" but added that that description would be normal as the quality of CCTV is generally "a lot worse" than the public think. However, he said meaningful analysis could still be gained from it.

In his first report, he looked at an image of the "suspect car" at 09:08:52 on the morning of the murder, going towards the O'Reilly house at Murphy's Quarry and compared it with the image of Mr O'Reilly's Fiat Marea estate car being driven in the same direction by gardaí.

He said he was "unable to eliminate" the possibility of the suspect car being the same as Mr O'Reilly's.

Asked by Mr McGinn whether this meant the suspect vehicle "could be" Mr O'Reilly's car, he said: "That's correct."

Among the factors which led him to draw this conclusion was the fact that the two cars had the same "general shape".

However he said the outline was blurred and admitted: "It comes across as a fairly crude analysis."

Referring to a roof rack he knew to be on Mr O'Reilly's car, he said there was some evidence to show such a roof rack was on the suspect car, but admitted that if he had not known about the rack on Mr O'Reilly's car, he would not have seen it on the suspect vehicle.

Mr Laws also said he knew about damage to the front right hand side of Mr O'Reilly's car but said this feature would only help him in his analysis if the quality of the image was good enough for him to see it.

He said his conclusion was: "The two images give moderate support to the contention that the two vehicles were of the same make and model."

He then explained the scaling system of image classification as going from: no support, limited support, moderate support, support, strong support, and powerful support.

However, he admitted this system of classification was subjective and could differ from one expert to another. He said another expert might well place these vehicles further down the scale but said it was unlikely they would consider them to be the next stage up.

He also said he couldn't discard the possibility of the suspect vehicle being "another vehicle that looks like a Fiat Marea estate".

In this first report, Mr Laws also compared a second image of the suspect vehicle at Murphy's Quarry going away from the direction of the O'Reilly house 09:57:42 with the image of Mr O'Reilly's car.

He said the wheels could be seen more clearly and that it could be seen that the car had wheel trims.

He said there were tonal effects he could see on the suspect vehicle which he could not see in the image of Mr O'Reilly's car, but he attributed them to the "different lighting conditions".

However, he said while his conclusion "is tentative" he could not rule out this vehicle as being the same one as Mr O'Reilly's.

He added: "We're in the realm of ‘could be, might be’."

He concluded that analysis showed "moderate support that the two vehicles were of the same make and model".

In his second report, Mr Laws again studied footage from Murphy's Quarry but this time, the image of the suspect vehicle was taken during the afternoon of the murder, at 14:13:13.

First, he compared this image with the image of the suspect vehicle taken at 09:08:52.

He said while he could see some evidence of a roof rack on the suspect vehicle from the earlier time, he was "unable to see any evidence of the roof rack" on the vehicle from the latter time.

However, he said he couldn't rule out the possibility of it being there either.

"I can't say it has, but I can't say it hasn't," he explained.

However, he agreed with Mr McGinn that there was "nothing to indicate the cars were not the same vehicle".

Overall, he concluded there was "moderate support" for the contention that this vehicle was the same make and model as the suspect car seen at the earlier time.

He added that because there was "nothing distinctive" about the images, "there was limited support for them being one in the same vehicle."

Secondly, he compared the suspect vehicle from the afternoon with the reconstruction image of Mr O'Reilly's car.

He said there was no similar roof rack and the comparison was of "limited evidential value".

He concluded there was "moderate support" for the contention that this suspect vehicle was the same make and model as Mr O'Reilly's Fiat Marea.

In his third report, Mr Laws looked at CCTV footage taken from a place south of Murphy's Quarry at Blake's Cross.

He said he looked at two images of suspect vehicles from this camera at 08:55:49, going in a northerly direction, and at 10:07:02, going in a southerly direction.

The court has already heard evidence that a text sent from Mr O'Reilly's phone at 10:07, was picked up by a mobile phone mast close to Blake's Cross.

Mr Laws said he compared each of these images with a reconstruction image of Mr O'Reilly's car at the same place.

Asked about the fact that the camera angle had changed from the time the original images of the suspect vehicle had been captured to the time when gardaí did their reconstruction, he admitted: "It would always be nice to have similar imagery."

However, he said the comparison he was able to make with this set of images was "stronger" than the Murphy's Quarry images.

"Trying to take account of those variations is all part of this comparison," he explained.

He said there was "considerably more detail" in the reconstruction images than there was in the original footage but said this might simply be due to someone cleaning the camera lens.

He said he couldn't see a roof rack on the 08:55:49 suspect vehicle which he could on the reconstruction car, but said: "That doesn't mean it's not there."

However, when he superimposed this vehicle on top of the other, alongside identifying other features, he said overall, there was a "marked correlation" between the two vehicles.

He concluded: "There was strong support for the contention that it was a Fiat Marea estate."

Referring to the comparison between the suspect vehicle at 10:07:02 and the reconstruction vehicle, he said both cars had a "bluish appearance".

He said he also reached the same conclusion that there was "strong support" that this suspect vehicle was a Fiat Marea estate.

However, he said: "I would say that I couldn't discount that it could be some other kind of vehicle but in order for that to be the case, that other vehicle would have to bare a striking resemblance to a Fiat Marea estate."

Under cross-examination by defence counsel Mr Patrick Gageby SC, Mr Laws said his experience in image analysis was gained through his military background when his job was aerial recognisance.

He agreed that among the tasks he was given to do would be to differentiate "one tank from another".

Mr Gageby then put it to him that he was given no other pictures of other estate cars "even though there might be other estate cars of similar size and description".

Mr Laws replied: "It would have taken a considerable body of work and reconstruction to rule out every other estate car in the country."

Asked whether there would be other estate cars of similar shape and size, he said the thought that was a "reasonable" proposition.

Earlier, the court heard evidence from Mr Paul Browne who said he had cleaned the camera lens at Blake's Cross but had not moved the camera itself.

The trial before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of nine men and two women continues tomorrow.