'I never once outbursts...some place & have a cry'

RICHARD Satchwell told gardai his wife Tina knocked him "out cold" and she had a "dark side," his murder trial has heard.

- PAUL HEALY

The 58-year-old who denies the March 2017 murder of Tina at their home - also told officers they were trying to buy Marmoset primates when asked to explain thousands of euro worth of Western Union transfers.

The court also heard about the accused's "untidy" house which had "dog faeces" on the floor and recent plaster and "fresh" red brick work done under the staircase when officers entered on June 7, 2017.

Tina's body was ultimately discovered behind a wall under the stairs of the property at Grattan Street in Youghal, Co Cork, during a Garda search in October 2023.

The evidence was heard on the second day of Satchwell's trial which is underway before a jury of seven women and five men at the Central Criminal Court.

Inspector Daniel Holland, who was a Detective Sergeant at Midleton Garda Station in 2017, told the trial that he spoke to Satchwell in the interview room a day after his house was searched under a warrant in June of that year.

Inspector Holland said he made it clear to Satchwell, whose had been home searched and laptops removed, that he wasn't under arrest and was free to leave at any stage.

They then went on to have a general conversation he said for an hour-and-a-half in which much of what Satchwell said "tallied up" with what he had told gardai previously about Tina's disappearance.

He told the court Satchwell also told him about his relationship with Tina, how he had "given up a lot in his life" to be with her and that his family didn't approve of it and no longer speak to him.

Satchwell, he said, told him that he wanted to have children but that Tina didn't- and alluded to the fact that she had "physically assaulted him on previous occasions".