A businessman was bludgeoned to death because his wife and her lover wanted to ensure he could not halt their secret love affair, it was claimed today.
Mr Gerald McGinley's badly decomposed body was found in a forest nearly a year after he went missing from his Co Fermanagh home in August 2000.
His wife, Ms Julie McGinley (31) and a business partner Michael Anthony Monaghan (44) are jointly accused of killing the father of two. Both deny the charge.
As their trial got under way at Laganside Crown Court in Belfast, the prosecution told how the pair murdered Mr McGinley and then smuggled his body across the border into the Irish Republic in a bid to ensure he never found out about their relationship.
Mr Terence Mooney QC said: "They wished to conduct a relationship between themselves and continue as if Gerald McGinley never existed.
"He was an impediment to them being together and from that point of view he had to be removed."
The lawyer told how Mrs McGinley, of Windmill Drive, Enniskillen and Mr Monaghan, of Ann Street, in the town, had been seen together by several people.
The court heard they were spotted in the back of a car - Mr Monaghan naked from the waist down - outside the furniture retail shop they ran with Mr McGinley.
The dead man had been drinking heavily on the night before his death on August 13th, 2000 after going out for the evening to an Enniskillen hotel with his wife.
They had been in the company of Mr Monaghan but after they left and returned to their home just outside Enniskillen, Mr McGinley was never seen alive again.
His remains were found in Co Leitrim and taken for a post mortem examination which revealed he had died violently.
Mr Mooney told the jury he had been beaten to death by a blunt instrument as he slept in his bed before being stripped and "secreted" away.
The prosecution said Mr Monaghan had confided to another woman that he disliked Mr McGinley because he hit his wife.
Mr Mooney told the court: "He said: `That stupid **** has hit her for the last time."
Mr Mooney added that Mr Monaghan had revealed to his friend, Ms Josephine McIlroy, that a man was going to "sort out" Mr McGinley, who had a stormy relationship with his wife.
"A couple of weeks later he said a man had got #500 but had not done the job right and that another man was going to sort him out," the lawyer said.
In another conversation after Mr McGinley went missing, it was alleged Mr Monaghan told another businessman he would be found "pushing up heather".
The lawyer said Mrs McGinley claimed her husband left early on the day after their last night out together, taking #1,000 in cash, because of a drugs charge he faced in the Irish Republic.
In June 2000 an informer had warned gardai that Mr McGinley was going to smuggle a big drugs consignment across the border from Enniskillen to Sligo.
He was later stopped and arrested after a packet containing small amounts of cannabis and Ecstasy was found in his wife's blue BMW car.
But the prosecution insisted the murdered man had been travelling to the Irish Republic on legitimate business to sell a lorry.
Following an investigation Mr McGinley was told by gardai they would not be pressing charges, Mr Mooney said.
With Mr McGinley cleared of the fear of prosecution, the lawyer insisted his wife's explanation was a lie to cover up the murder.
A detective assigned to the case noticed Mr and Mrs McGinley's bedroom had been completely redecorated. A new bed, duvet, carpet and furniture had all been installed after the disappearance.
The remains of two fires were also spotted by police in a yard outside the house.
Mr McGinley was said to have left on the Sunday morning wearing the same clothes he had bought the previous day and worn out to the Fort Lodge that evening.
Police bought the same shirt, jeans and shoes from a department store and discovered the debris in the fire matched the clothing they had purchased, the jury was told.
Mr Mooney said tests carried out on the body by Dr Eileen Murphy, a forensic archaeologist at Queen's University in Belfast, found the blows to the victim's head would have cause blood to splatter off the weapon.
"It would have been necessary to completely destroy and get rid of all signs of blood contamination," he said.
"The only effective way to do that was to entirely strip that room of its furniture, bedding, carpet." DNA tests run on semen stains on the bed also matched those of the two co-accused, he alleged.
He said: "Not only had they formed a sexual relationship prior to Gerry's disappearance, that relationship continued after his disappearance ... confident that he would not return to disturb their relationship."
The trial continues.
PA