DAY ONE OF TRIAL FOR WITHHOLDING INFORMATION IN OUGHTERARD KILLING CASE

Date Published: 13-Nov-2012

The trial of a Romanian man charged with with-holding information in relation to the unlawful killing of an Oughterard publican and school-teacher in September last year continues tomorrow.

38 year old Florin Fitzpatrick with a former address at The Green on College Road in the city pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned before Galway Circuit Criminal Court today.

56 year old John Kenny was found dead at his pub in Main Street, Oughterard on the 25th September 2011.

A post-mortem revealed he had died as a result of an assault.

Today, a jury of six men and six women were sworn in before Judge Gerard Griffin for the trial of Romanian man Florin Fitzpatrick who is accused of withholding information in relation to the garda investigation.

His trial is expected to take between two to three weeks.

Jury members were addressed by Senior Prosecuting Counsel Remy Farrell who gave a summary of the evidence to be heard in the course of the trial.

Evidence began with garda evidence from the mapping section of the technical bureau and from the bureau’s photographic section.

This was followed by evidence from the deceased wife Kathleen Kenny who told the court she had a very amicable separation from him in 1999 and knew him since she was 14.

Her daughter 28 year old Gillian Kenny also took to the witness box.

Both witnesses gave details of how they came on the scene just after 5pm on Sunday Sept 25th

Dr Peter Harte also gave witness evidence of arriving at the scene where he found the deceased face down inside the lady’s toilet, after which he took a temperature reading which he said “would imply he had been dead for several hours”.