The trial of Richard Satchwell for the murder of his wife Tina six years after she disappeared is due to start at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin on Monday morning and could last up to six weeks.
Mr Satchwell (58), from Leicester in the UK, is charged with the murder of Ms Satchwell (45) at the house they shared at Grattan Street in Youghal, Co Cork on March 20th, 2017.
The trial at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin is expected to hear evidence from dozens of witnesses. Mr Satchwell is being defended by Brendan Grehan SC and the State is represented by prosecution counsel Geraldine Small SC.
Mr Satchwell had reported his wife missing to gardaí in Fermoy on March 24th, 2017. Tina grew up in St Bernard’s Place as Tina Dingivan before she emigrated to Leicester in the UK in the late 1980s.
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Richard Satchwell’s brother lived just a few doors away from Tina’s aunt in Leicester and it was there that the couple first met and began dating on March 3rd, 1989. In June 1989, Mr Satchwell came to Ireland with her to meet other family members.
They stayed together in Ireland for a period before he proposed to her at Mount Pleasant, overlooking Youghal Bay. They later returned to the UK where, on Ms Dingivan’s 20th birthday on November 30th, 1991, they married in Oldham.
They subsequently returned to Ireland and began living at Liam MacGearailt Place in Fermoy where Mr Satchwell worked a variety of jobs, before they sold their house in Fermoy and purchased the three-storey property on Grattan Street in Youghal.
Gardaí initially treated Ms Satchwell’s disappearance as a Missing Person’s Case after it was reported to them by Mr Satchwell, but it was upgraded to a murder inquiry when gardaí found human remains buried under the floor in their home on Grattan Street on October 12th, 2023.
The remains were identified as being those of Ms Satchwell. Mr Satchwell was arrested and questioned before being brought before a special sitting of Cashel District Court on October 14th, where he was charged with the murder of his wife.
Det Gda David Kelleher of Cobh Garda station gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution and told how he arrested and charged Mr Satchwell outside the station at 8.07pm on October 13th with his wife’s murder.
Vigils were held for Ms Satchwell in both Youghal and Fermoy following the discovery of her body. Friends and neighbours lined the street for her funeral cortege through Fermoy on October 25th, 2023, before her remains were cremated at the Island Crematorium in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork.
Ms Satchwell’s family expressed both relief and a profound sense of loss and sadness after learning that remains found in the house in Youghal were hers. She was the youngest of five girls and had three brothers.
