The prosecution case in the trial for murder of Joe O'Reilly came close to completion yesterday with detailed technical testimony on CCTV pictures.
It was the 17th day of the trial of Mr O'Reilly (35), Lambay View, Baldarragh, the Naul, Co Dublin, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, Rachel O'Reilly (30), at the family home on October 4th, 2004.
Image analyst Andrew Laws, from Calligate Imagery Bureau in England, said gardaí gave him CCTV footage from the morning of the murder along with reconstruction images and asked to compare a number of vehicles.
He told Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that he compiled three reports after analysing the footage. Evidence from the first report related to CCTV footage from Murphy's quarry near the O'Reilly home.
On Monday, the court heard evidence that a car matching the description of Mr O'Reilly's navy-coloured Fiat Marea estate was seen from this camera on the morning of the murder.
The court also heard evidence that gardaí drove Mr O'Reilly's car past the Murphy's quarry CCTV camera in an attempt to create comparative images to those from October 4th.
Mr Laws said he compared the original footage from the morning of the murder with these "reconstruction" images.
However, he said, a reconstruction "is not a replication".
Referring to the first set of images at Murphy's quarry, he said there were a number of factors making it difficult for him to analyse the cars, including the quality of the images, the difference in the weather, the glare of the sun and angles.
He said "overall" he would describe the original imagery as "fair" but added that that description would be normal as the quality of CCTV is generally "a lot worse" than the public think. However, he said meaningful analysis could still be gained from it.
In his first report, he looked at an image of the "suspect car" at 9.08.52 on the morning of the murder, going towards the O'Reilly house and compared it with the image of Mr O'Reilly's Fiat Marea estate car being driven in the same direction by gardaí. He was "unable to eliminate" the possibility of the suspect car being the same as Mr O'Reilly's.
Asked by Mr McGinn whether this meant the suspect vehicle "could be" Mr O'Reilly's car, he said: "That's correct." Among the factors which led him to draw this conclusion was the fact that the two cars had the same "general shape". However he said the outline was blurred and admitted the "it comes across as a fairly crude analysis".
Referring to a roof rack he knew to be on Mr O'Reilly's car, he said there was some evidence to show such a roof rack was on the suspect car, but if he had not known about the rack on Mr O'Reilly's car, he would not have seen it on the suspect vehicle.
Mr Laws also said he knew about damage to the front right-hand side of Mr O'Reilly's car but said this feature would only help him in his analysis if the quality of the image was good enough for him to see it.
His conclusion was "that the two images give moderate support to the contention that the two vehicles were of the same make and model".
In his second report, Mr Laws again studied footage from Murphy's quarry but this time, the image of the suspect vehicle was taken during the afternoon of the murder, at 14.13.13.
Firstly, he compared this image with the image of the suspect vehicle taken at 9.08.52.
While he could see some evidence of a roof rack on the suspect vehicle from the earlier time, he was "unable to see any evidence of the roof rack" on the vehicle from the latter time.
However, he said he could not rule out the possibility of it being there either. "I can't say it has, but I can't say it hasn't," he explained.
He said there was no similar roof rack and the comparison was of "limited evidential value". He concluded there was "moderate support" for the contention that this suspect vehicle was the same make and model as Mr O'Reilly's Fiat Marea.
In his third report, Mr Laws looked at CCTV footage taken from a place south of Murphy's quarry at Blake's Cross. He looked at two images of suspect vehicles from this camera at 8.55.49, going in a northerly direction, and at 10.07.02, going in a southerly direction.
Mr Laws said he compared each of these images with a reconstruction image of Mr O'Reilly's car at the same place.
He said he could not see a roof rack on the 8.55.49 suspect vehicle which he could on the reconstruction car, but "that doesn't mean it's not there".
However, when he superimposed this vehicle on top of the other, alongside identifying other features, he said overall there was a "marked correlation" between the two vehicles.