A HSE addiction counsellor has been found guilty of being the getaway driver for “violent and abusive thug” Brian McHugh after he murdered Lisa Thompson by strangling her with a blind cord and stabbing her to death in her own home.
The Central Criminal Court jury today agreed with the prosecution’s case that Deirdre Arnold (42) was not an “innocent abroad” and had “decided at every turn” to assist her then-partner McHugh, whom she knew to have murdered mother-of-two Ms Thompson.
Arnold, who the court heard is the sole financial support for her family, is to remain on bail pending her sentence.
Evidence was heard at McHugh’s trial that Ms Thompson was dealing prescription drugs from her home, with gardaí who searched the house finding thousands of prescription tablets worth nearly €50,000 hidden in the attic. The court heard that Ms Thompson and McHugh had a “bit of a fling” in the year before she died.
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The 11 jurors took five hours and 33 minutes over two days to unanimously reject the defence contention that the prosecution had failed to prove their client knew McHugh had committed a murder when she drove him away from the deceased’s house.
Defence lawyers for Arnold submitted in their closing address that while the defendant may have been the getaway driver, it was convicted murderer McHugh that was “really in the driving seat”.
Patrick Gageby SC, defending, argued that mother-of-three Arnold was “full of fear” that she could have been strangled herself and reminded the jury that, even if they were satisfied she assisted the murderer, for a conviction, they had to find it was without reasonable excuse.
Arnold had told gardaí that McHugh had broken her arm by holding it on the bottom of a stairwell and stamping on it. She had also made domestic abuse complaints and been granted an interim barring order against the killer.
A recording dated November 22nd, 2021, of McHugh calling Arnold a “dirty smelly blonde wh**e” and threatening to cut her throat had been played to the jury during the trial.
McHugh can also be heard saying: “I’m telling you if you wanna get the cops up for me you’re f**kin’ dead. Wind me up one more time and you’re dead.”
[ Murdered Lisa Thompson remembered as ‘beloved mother’ and ‘loving daughter’Opens in new window ]
Notwithstanding this, the members of the jury unanimously accepted the State’s case that Arnold impeded McHugh’s prosecution by driving him to Ms Thompson’s home at Sandyhill Gardens in Ballymun on May 9th, 2022, where she waited outside for “well over an hour” before driving him away from the scene. Arnold later checked McHugh into the Clayton Hotel near Dublin Airport in an effort to help him evade prosecution.
It was also the prosecution’s case that the defendant allowed her silver Hyundai Tucson to be used to dispose of evidence taken from Ms Thompson’s home.
When the jurors left the courtroom, Mr Gageby asked the judge whether his client could stay out on bail until her sentencing date. He said she was a mother-of-three and the sole financial supporter of her three children.
Fiona Murphy SC, prosecuting, said the Director of Public Prosecutions had no particular view and agreed that Arnold had been on bail for the last three years.
The judge said he would not remove the defendant’s bail at this stage.
Mr Justice McGrath remanded Arnold on continuing bail on the same terms and conditions until June 20th, when her sentencing hearing will take place.
