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THE JURY IN the Graham Dwyer trial have found the 41-year-old architect guilty of the murder of Elaine O’Hara.
The seven men and five women of the jury reached their unanimous verdict after two months of the gruelling and, at times, traumatic trial. They deliberated for a total of seven hours and 33 minutes.
The verdict was read out to a packed courtroom at about 3.45pm today, day 45 of the trial.
Justice Tony Hunt told the jury he agreed with the verdict 110% before telling them they were exempt from jury duty for the next 30 years.
“I don’t mind expressing view at this time. I hope I was careful not to express the view at any other stage.”
He said he “whole-heartedly” endorsed their verdict.
“The question of suicide simply wasn’t there.”
On hearing the guilty verdict, Elaine O’Hara’s family members – her father, her brother and sister – were in tears and embraced.
Dwyer, who will be sentenced to mandatory life in prison, closed his eyes and shook his head when the guilty verdict was brought in by the jury. His father and tearful sister were seated in the gallery.
Sentencing will take place at 2pm on 20 April. There will also be a victim impact statement read by the O’Hara family on that day.
Prior to the verdict being read out, Dwyer, dressed in a navy suit and white shirt, took his seat, and loosened his pink and purple stripped tie.
“No doubt you’re human like myself, when you’re cut, you bleed. These things are not easy,” Justice Hunt told the jury.
He thanked them for their “very difficult task” and also for the patience they displayed.
Justice Hunt said they were all “first-class citizens” for carrying out their civic duty. He said the good news for them now was that the trial had now come to an end and they could get on with their lives.
He told the jury members they have done their duty and are private citizens. “What happened in that room, as far as you are concerned, is nobody’s business,” said Justice Hunt.
He told them that if they are approached in anyway about the trial they are to contact court services and he would deal with it.
“Go back to your lives… thank you very much indeed,” he concluded.
The prosecution and defence finished their cases last week, with closing speeches for both sides concluding last Friday. The judge concluded his instructions to the jury on Thursday morning.
Some 197 witnesses had given evidence for the prosecution during the eight weeks of the trial. The defence called three witnesses and concluded its case in less 30 minutes last Wednesday.
Graham Dwyer, a 42-year-old architect from Foxrock in Dublin, denied the charges.
Elaine O’Hara was last seen on 22 August 2012. Her remains were found on Killakee mountain a year later.
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Classic case of someone letting attention go to his head…
Just what Ireland needs – another single issue parish pump party.
@Lee King Buckett: We need something new FFG are a joke.
@G Row.: That may well be the case but I can guarantee you that a mica party is not the answer.
@G Row.: don’t know about you G Row but the more Paddy Diver speaks the the more I loathe the micra campaign. Can’t imagine many people would back a political party he is involved in.
@Roy Dowling: Driven to it in my opinion.
The trouble these days I find there are too many people see this as getting something for nothing, l don’t.
I’m sure Paddy Driver and the rest of the group would not be doing any of this if they weren’t victims in the first place.
@G Row.:
Nobody is being driven to form their own single issue political party. That’s nonsense.
This crowd know there is support for the mica issue and are looking to capitalise on it.
@G Row.: Victims of wrong doing by the manufacturer of the products who is still in business to this day and not by the taxpaying people of Ireland who they expect to repair their homes.
@Lee King Buckett:
that’s what you see, a parish pump politican that let attention go to his head.
However the thousands of people affected by mica and the tens of thousands of their family and friends see a person that cares unlike every political party that has done no more than pay a little lip service.
I’m not from donegal but my sympathy is with them, why were/are the people of donegal affected by mica being treated differently than the people of Dublin were with pyrite, who received 100% with no caveats
@Roy Dowling: Totally agree with you but imagine you were in their position.
Always the same in this country the big boys walk away and the victims are then vilified for standing up for themselves.
@Lee King Buckett: We keep hearing this party and that party are not the answer.
DO you think FFG are?
@G Row.: there is no party called FFG.
@G Row.: No definitely not but neither is a mica party.
@White Chapel: So what do you think “This crowd” should do, sit back and take it while they see the people that caused it walk away as usual.
@John Mulligan: Of course there isn’t John. Nudge nudge, wink wink.
@G Row.:
Such nonsense.. What are you even talking about? What are they going to achieve by winning a few seats in Donegal County Council or the Dail? Nothing.
Come election time, they won’t want to have their 30k or more supporters vote for someone else though. Not when they have a well established candidate in that mouthpiece Paddy Diver. He and some of the other activists could easily get elected.
As for the people that caused it? You must mean Cassidy’s Quarry? Sure they are walking away with it no matter what happens.
@White Chapel: So Cassidys quarry are walking away no matter what happens.
Is that OK with you?
If it was your house falling down what would you do?
@G Row.: They never even tried going after the manufacturer. One of there legal team literal said the haven’t bought proceedings against anyone else they are waiting to see what the government comes back with.
@G Row.: no, a simple fact.
@Roy Dowling: Can you just imagine how long it would take to get the manufacturer to cough up.
It would be the usual story of the legal lads getting rich in the background and nobody getting a house built.
@G Row.:
They are by the looks of it, seeing as there are no legal actions against them, but a full blown campaign against the state.
Where did i say that was ok for cassidys to get away with it?
Try staying on the point of the previous comments. Paddy Diver and company are basically a bunch of disaster capitalists now with their eye on the councillors & tds salaries as well as the hand out for redress compensation.
Ready to stand in line with ff, fg, sf and all the other useless articles out there in irish politics. There’s nothing between any of them
@G Row.: That’s there problem not the taxpayer of Ireland’s.
@Lee King Buckett: well it works in Kerry and for other Independents. I think if we had say fifty per cent less TDs and County councillors we would have a chance to be a functioning democracy ask yourself should your council be the biggest employer in the county jobs for the boys and girls, the old county council model needs to be abolished corrupt to the core a councillor in every village what a joke.
@Roy Dowling: I’ll back him 100%
@Joe Kelly: Nothing ‘works’ about Kerry & the Healy-Reas.
There is a political dynasty there who are multi-millionaires, pulling in salaries funded by tax payers whilst contributing nothing to the national picture.
It’s really ironic that you are disillusioned by the ‘jobs for the boys’ mentality and then go on to say that the situation in Kerry works.
It’s fairly depressing that there are people who politically aspire to be like the Healy-Reas.
I guess 500k a head of taxpayer money wasn’t enough
@Adam Rekio: did you believe everything this government said they would do at the last election.
Classic case of someone not reading the detail not the headlines.
@Peter McGlynn: *just the headlines.
As a Donegal man, this is rid iculous (had to space that word to beat the toxicity filter (8.0! Down to 4.8 at that point). The people of Donegal won’t be swayed too much by this. They might (big might) get one in but no more and it won’t panic ff fg etc (much to many anti gov people’s chagrin). This lad needs to look at himself, his performance in particular came very close to driving public sympathy away from the issue. Someone in the group needs to have a word with him for all their sakes, and for any other groups that might need to have their causes highlighted in the future. As already stated, we’ve enough single (dealt with) issue people in the dail taking up seats.
@TomTraubert: “taking up dail seats”, should they vacate them for somebody from the cartel that have been ruining the country for the last 100 years?
@Eamonn Connaghan: ‘cartel’? They were all elected.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: haha, yeah, I laughed at cartel as well. You’d swear people were going around with guns making people vote for them……
@John Mulligan: there was plenty of sympathy and plenty of people were behind them but his performance on the first day in the big smoke giving his Twitter handle out saying come and complain to me I don’t care when threatening to bring the city to a standstill turned people against him/them alright. Yes, it was probably the main reason and nobody likes a bully is right. But, something else was at play too….they wanted 100% redress and when it looked like the gov were going to listen the anti fffg mobs rounded on them too because the government were going to be wasting ‘taxpayers’ money (hate that term, it’s exchequer funding or citizens money to be correct) on the scheme. Weird reaction from the anti big bad gubbermint brigade.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Not as a political party to run this country, they formed a pack against the wishes of the majority of voters in this country.
Any one of the three party government haven’t a mandate to run our country. ????
@Jimmy Kiely: Its called democracy. Look it up instead of spouting silliness. Perhaps you are disappointed that we are not a theocracy or kleptocracy with an authoritarian figure that you can worship.
A Donegal version of the healy-raes…
No thanks
I can’t understand how houses in Donegal that were valued by their owners at between E100,000 and E300,000 for Property Tax purposes are now valued at over E400,00. You cannot expect the rest of the country to accept the facts and pay the full cost of rebuilding if the correct amount of property tax has not been paid over the years. If you value your house at E200,000 and pay the tax on that then how come that even allowing for building inflation it is now worth double that.
Are some of the good folk of Donegal abusing the system ?
@JG: that’s one of the key issues.
Another is the whole black economy of one-off house building. Expecting redress from taxpayers where no or few taxes were paid.
@JG:
Divide Deceive Distract
Lovely bit of red herring
Thrown in Mr FFG…
@JG: I’ve an answer to that scrap the property tax. Hmm maybe I should form a political party and stand on a single issue of it would be immoral and corrupt to tax a home ! There or did Enda say that?? Or have a slogan like Paddy needs to know!! I feel an election coming on!!
@Kerry Evans: sorry I’m certainly not in any party but if you consider someone undervaluing their property for tax reasons and not adding their fair share to the pot and then upping the value of the property when it suits so as to take money from the same pot is fair play then yes it’s a red herring … on the other hand I think most people would consider it fraud.
@JG: Dead Right!! If they declared the value of their houses at say E250k for property tax reasons, let that be the maximum amount they can claim. By claiming any more than that could be fraud, Allegedly.
Wasting their time. Grand delusions of changing the system.
@Dave Johnston: maybe grand delusions of linining pockets on the back of a realization that a few thousand angry votes were the perfect ticket. Nice mileage bill from Donegal to Leinster house.. about €400 tax free per return trip I believe is how it works out.
@Dave Johnston: Agree with you Dave. Can’t believe the arro-gance of the man. They refuse to tackle the people who are responsible for all of this, pushes his demands higher and higher and refuses to negotiate, gets the politicians on their side threatening them with ‘ competition’ for their seats at next election. That works, so the Govt come up with a hastily agreed compensation package and even before he gets the money in their greedy little paws, they threaten to unseat all sitting politicians by forming their own political party. If he had kept his powder dry until they got the money, fair enough but to announce it now, guarantees he will never succeed. Especially after giving two fingers to the public taxpayer. Donegal does desparately need politicians of integrity but the Healy Raes comparison, gave me a good belly laugh. And now he wants us to fund his house and his future as a perk loaded TD. Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!
A political party that will only have 1 true agenda and that is there own agenda schools won’t matter social housing won’t matter the environment certainly won’t matter but if it concerns MICA and redress that’s all they’ll truly care about.
When reading the headline associating with healy Reas”. The 1st thing that came to mind was “Me Fein politics”…
Householders should only be recouped for the stated value of the Mica affected house as declared by the owners officially to Revenue in determining their annual Property Tax. Why should the rest of us taxpayers foot a bill for anything in excess of this stated value. Also householders should be refunded only to the value where they can demonstrate the manner in which they had legitimately paid for the construction costs and excluding under the counter payments.
@Irish big fellow: And that will be generous. I live in Dublin, and the valuation of my house for the property tax is well above the cost of replacement of the house, since it is the plot of land that makes up most of the cost. Land is much cheaper in Donegal, of course.
You can’t fault them . Independents hold more power now than the big political parties and it will continue with the fragmented Governments we have coming for the next 50 years
He’s making his Santa list a bit early for next year. A new house, 100% paid by the tax payer, new tennis courts, new basketball courts, a GI Joe with Kung Fu grip. Diver needs to understand here that if there is a governance and/or regulation fault then the blame for that sits squarely with Donegal Co Council. Now look at the make up of that council.
Yawn….
@M.J. O’ Neill: after that deep, thought provoking 4 letter comment, you can have a little lie down, you must be exhausted!
Unfortunately a single issue party will go nowhere. As tax payers have been left footing the bill they’ll struggle for public support. I fell bad for them but their efforts would be better off suing the materials supplier.
It will crumble at the First Hurdle
Much wants more
Diver has some neck
its a bigger issue then 1 TD, ! TD couldn’t have stopped Mica
It’s the forgotten county
@Big bad bull: killybegs had the highest standard of living in Ireland a few years back.
@John Mulligan:Killybegs has a population of 1236. Is the main fishing port for North Atlantic fleet, with a high proportion of that population employed in fisheries. So not really a demographic or living standard measuring standard for rest of county or country.
@M Bowe: I’m just pointing out that donegal isn’t the third world that these campaigners are trying to portray. Letterkenny seems to be doing pretty well, as is Bundoran. Indeed the latter has a busy venue where the card machines in the bar seem to be perpetually broken and they haven’t time to have them fixed.
Unfortunately as we don’t have a robust and proper system of local government, this is probably the best way to affect change locally. This a symptom of how broken the system is.
@Antaine Ó Cáthain:
That shows what you know about local government.
Even if they took every seat in Donegal they still couldn’t change anything.
@Antaine Ó Cáthain: Local Government has been stymied since rates were abolished.
@White Chapel: of course they could, the councillors don’t have many powers but they do set the budget and development plan. So if Paddy Diver wants more basketball courts or the local roads improved then he can request an increase in property tax to pay for it or, as he says himself, let Donegal people look after Donegal, e.g. pay for their own mica damaged houses.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: sinn fein is going to pay for everything with a tax on ‘wealth,’ they say.
So rates appear to be on the way back.
That should shift the remaining small.farmers and business owners out of rural Ireland.
@The next small thing:
Yea I’d say that’s exactly the way it will happen. Paddy Diver and the Mica gang will put up property tax (if it hasn’t already been increased by the 15% maximum already) to raise funds for the county.
He’s got a bit of recognition over the last few years of this campaign and it seems that he now wants to make the public pay him for it
I bought a new car a few weeks ago, the place i got it from went bust but so did my car, will the government pay for me to get a new car?don’t think so, jokers
@Happy: has several government agencies failed in enforcing the proper manufacturing regulations in the manufacture of your car, has citizens in another part of the country been fully reimbursed for similar faults with their vehicles?
If so then of course you are entitled to equal treatment.
@Happy: form a car party, or just join sinn fein.
Let ‘the rich’ pay for it.
“Donegal resident form-mica party”
@John Quill: vote Formica!!!
You can’t fault them . Independents hold more power now than the big political parties and it will continue with the fragmented Governments we gave coming for the next 50 years
Sounds like a separatist group for Donegal (time Donegal people started looking after Donegal)
I get it, they’ve been completely neglected since probably independence by the powers that be.
But c’mon, there’s no way this single issue party is going to take off.
how the Healy-Raes take care of Kerry. I will give them that much they do take care of who elected them, just a pity they use the simpleton act to hide how intellegent and ruthless they are. Just hides what they really are, and make you wonder, whatever public deals they get by holding the government to ransom, how many under the table deals are done?
Home rule for Donegal and home rule for Yorkshire.
Not as smart as the Healy Raes, should have played the gombeen at the start then ask for everything after cementing your seat.
It wont last long, eventually it will all fall apart.
If anything exemplified why we need to elect the Dáil on a list system or list hybrid, it’s something like this. The national parliament is there to enact laws for the good of ALL the people, not some of the people, some of the time. Its time to give more autonomy to local government and get the parish pump TF out of the Oireachtas.
What’s the green party
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