The defence counsel in the trial of Graham Dwyer for the murder of Elaine O'Hara has told the jury it was vital to remind them of the presumption of innocence.
Mr Dwyer, 42, of Kerrymount Close in Foxrock, denies the murder of 36-year-old Elaine O'Hara at Kilakee Mountain in Rathfarnham on 22 August 2012.
Remy Farrell opened his speech with an extract from one of the explicit documents read to the jury during the trial, called 'Killing Darci'.
He read the extract where Mr Dwyer said he had always fantasised about killing since he was a teen and that he could decide who lived or died just like his hero, God.
Mr Farrell said he had no doubt that when they heard those words they were shocked.
He said he had never started a closing speech in a murder case with words like that, but he said it was necessary to face up to the evidence.
He said it could be described as difficult, unpleasant and distasteful - that it could be described as repellent in some aspects and he agreed with the prosecution that it was fairly disgusting.
He said the jury may well regard Mr Dwyer as repellent and he could not suggest the events they were dealing with were even close to normal.
But he said it was vital to remind them of the presumption of innocence.
He said a lot of the material on Mr Dwyer's computer was deeply misogynistic at least.
He referred to the explicit videos seen by the jury. He asked how could they taken anyone seriously when they had seen the videos.
But he said they were about to become the hardest working jury in the building as they now had to regain the presumption of innocence.
Mr Farrell told the jury that some of them may have formed the view that the interest Mr Dwyer had was so disturbing that he should be locked up irrespective of his guilt or innocence.
He said that was a view some people may have, and it may be a view some of them have entertained.
He said that was something they had to set aside.
Mr Farrell said he was not there to convince them that Mr Dwyer was a nice guy or that Mr Dwyer's interviews with gardaí were examples of searing truth and candour.
He said there was an awful lot of evidence bringing the prosecution so far, but no further.
But he said there was a gaping chasm in this case.
Distinction in case between fantasy and reality - Counsel
He said there was a distinction in this case between fantasy and reality.
He said every time the prosecution attempted to bridge the gap they came up short.
He said the prosecution was putting forward an extraordinarily elaborate theory not on the basis of evidence but on speculation.
He said they were trying to do a backward somersault over the gap in the case.
He said the prosecution was saying what was in the documents were not just desires but plans and those plans were what happened.
Mr Farrell said the prosecution had been trying to push the jury's buttons and get an emotional reaction in the way it had run the case.
He asked why Mr Dwyer's adult son had been called to give evidence.
Was the prosecution trying to send a message that even Mr Dwyer's own son was prepared to swear up against him?
He urged the jurors to ask themselves who was pushing their buttons and why.
He said all of the evidence that was problematic for the prosecution had been called at the start of the case.
He asked them if they remembered the pathologist's evidence or if they remembered any evidence called before the videos were shown to them.
He said the prosecution had left the evidence in relation to text messages until the end to get an impact of a particular sort.
He said all was fair in love and war but just because he told them how the magician performed his trick did not mean it was not a good trick.
He said evidence had an emotional impact but he said they could not decide the case on the basis of a gut level reaction.
Mr Farrell said they had to weigh up all the evidence - he said the case was largely about circumstantial evidence.
He said they had to look at all the possibilities even if they were unpalatable or things they did not want to consider and they had to cast a cold and rational eye over the evidence.
He said gardaí had devoted major resources to attributing the phones but there was a disparity with the other leg of the case - what actually happened on 22 August 2012.
He said even if they accepted Mr Dwyer owned the phones, the prosecution case after that was wobbly.
He said the 'Killing Darci' document suggested multiple stabbings and an orgy of violence.
He said if Mr Dwyer had stabbed Ms O'Hara on multiple occasions, it was inconceivable that there would not have been some kind of injury on her bones.
He said there was a deliberate attempt to put clear blue water between the end of the case and the evidence of the pathologist, Michael Curtis.
He asked why did they not put the scenario outlined in 'Killing Darci' to Dr Curtis.
Mr Farrell said the jury must treat some of the evidence of the O'Hara family with caution.
He said some of their evidence may not be entirely reliable for reasons that are entirely understandable.
He said this could not be said of gardaí.
He said whenever evidence popped up that suggested suicide, gardaí ignored it or pretended it did not exist or they had forgotten it.
He suggested that gardaí felt defensive because of the lack of investigation into Ms O'Hara's disappearance in 2012.
Prosecutor says Dwyer had intent to kill
Earlier, prosecuting counsel Sean Guerin told the trial that he was not asking the jury to believe him when he said the evidence pointed towards murder.
He said he was asking them to take at face value the unguarded and open expression of intent to kill made by Mr Dwyer in text messages and documents he wrote.
He said all he was asking them to do was to believe when Mr Dwyer showed himself to be a sadistic, brutal pervert with nothing on his mind but murder, that he was telling the truth.
He said Mr Dwyer lied to gardaí not to protect his wife or job but to avoid the obvious and only inference of the evidence.
He said if the jurors accepted what he said in the documents then there was evidence to satisfy them he was guilty of murder and they could convict him of that.
Mr Guerin earlier told the jury that what happened to Ms O'Hara on 22 August 2012, fitted into a plan, elaborated and thought about over a long period of time by Mr Dwyer.
Mr Guerin said the prosecution was relying on two documents found on a hard drive at Mr Dwyer's home as well as text messages sent from phones the prosecution says were used by Mr Dwyer.
He said these showed that there were a number of issues Mr Dwyer had identified if his plan was to be effective.
Mr Guerin said Mr Dwyer considered how he was to find a victim if one was not willing to make herself available to him.
He thought about a random attack on a hiker and thought about how he would disable an unwilling victim.
He said the first feature that Mr Dwyer had to address was to find an isolated location.
Mr Guerin told the court that as far back as July 2011, Mr Dwyer outlined a number of ways he could kill Ms O'Hara in messages sent to her.
One of these ways was very close to what happened.
He said having an untraceable phone was a key element in the plan as was choosing a vulnerable person.
He said it was important for Mr Dwyer that the circumstances looked like suicide.
Mr Guerin pointed out that Mr Dwyer ordered a hunting knife on 17 August 2012 which was delivered the day before Ms O'Hara's disappearance.
He said the prosecution did not make the case that this was the knife used to kill Ms O'Hara.
But he said it was an important part of the "tool kit" that Mr Dwyer wanted to assemble.
He said Mr Dwyer was concerned with the practical aspects of the plan and how he would avoid getting blood on him.
He said he was concerned about whether or not to bury the body or leave a crime scene.
Mr Guerin referred to evidence in the case about a spade found near the scene where Ms O'Hara's remains were found.
He said Mr Dwyer's wife, Gemma, had identified this spade as a spade missing from their family home.
He told the jurors the forensic analysis of paint splashed on the spade was a matter for them.
Mrs Dwyer had claimed she recognised the spade because of the label on it and splatters of brown-orange paint on it.
Mr Guerin said the analysis showed that paint found on the fence at Mr Dwyer's home and in pots of paint at the house did not match the paint on the spade although it was very similar.
He asked the jury if they painted a fence or a wall would they tend to keep every single pot of paint they had used.
He said whether or not the paint on that particular part of the fence came from the same pot as the paint they splashed on the spade, was something they could not know.
But he said they had to weigh up the evidence as carefully as they could.
He said the spade in Mr Dwyer's garden at the time of his arrest could not have been the spade Mrs Dwyer had noticed was missing in 2012, as it was not manufactured until 2013.
Mr Guerin said Mr Dwyer did not realise how fully records of phone conversations could be extracted from iphones and a computer.
He said right up to the moment of the stabbing, Ms O'Hara thought this was part of the "play", that it was part of her punishment, part of the relationship she had with Mr Dwyer and she did not see it for what it was.
Although he said she had moments of clarity when she feared what was going to happen.
Mr Guerin said everything pointed to a carefully elaborated and thoughtful plan being carried out on the day.
Mr Guerin said there was a suggestion in the case that this was all a terrible mistake and that Ms O'Hara had taken her own life.
He said this was a matter for the jury but the prosecution case was that this was an extraordinary suggestion and could not possibly be correct.
He asked how she could possibly have taken her own life.
He said there was no explanation for the evidence found in the reservoir.
He said the hoodie and t-shirt she had been wearing on 22 August 2012 were found in the reservoir.
He asked if she could have stopped at the reservoir to throw her belongings and clothes in and then continued somehow, to Kilakee Mountain, semi-clothed.
He asked the jurors then if it was possible that she had assistance to take her there - someone to help her and to dispose of her belongings afterwards.
He said if she did have help, the evidence pointed to Mr Dwyer as being that person. But he said that is not what Mr Dwyer told gardaí.
He said Mr Dwyer had suggested that gardaí should look for someone else; someone who liked Real Madrid and wore pink underwear.
Mr Guerin said the text messages did not reveal any interest in soccer on the part of the texter - the only hobby he had was flying as well as stabbing.
He said this was grasping at straws on the part of Mr Dwyer.
Mr Guerin said Ms O'Hara had been suicidal in the past and had acted on that many years earlier.
But he said when you engaged with the evidence in this case, he did not know how you could say she was suicidal on 22 August 2012.
She had a chronic psychiatric condition but she had plans for the next day.
He said her medication was untouched, her father and doctors thought she was in good mood.
She was worried about getting home to get some rest so she could get up early to get a lift to the Tall Ships Festival she had volunteered for.
He said the message Mr Dwyer was communicating to people that this was suicide was nothing more than a last desperate attempt to try to convince people that the plan he had in place to make it look like suicide could survive an engagement with the evidence.
Mr Guerin said that a reference in messages to Mr Dwyer "getting into trouble" if he did not stab Ms O'Hara meant that Mr Dwyer desperately needed to do this.
He said this idea had been on Mr Dwyer's mind for 20 years and he had become so agitated by his fantasy that he was saying he was going to do something that would get him into trouble if she did not lend herself to the plan soon.
But he said Ms O'Hara had not given up on life or hope.
Mr Guerin said there was no medical evidence about Ms O'Hara's cause of death but there was evidence from which they could infer this.
He said there had been no evidence contradicting the text messages, the movements of the phones or the nature of the relationship, except the lies told to gardaí by Mr Dwyer.
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