Judge continues directions to jury in Paula Farrell murder trial

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

A judge was continuing his directions to the jury in Paula Farrell’s murder trial at the Central Criminal Court. The proceedings were reported on 26 March 2020.

Farrell pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter over the unlawful killing of Wayne McQuillan at her home in Drogheda on New Year’s Day 2014.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott said the jury had to consider whether Farrell had been provoked by an alleged sexual assault by McQuillan. He said provocation was a partial defence that could reduce murder to manslaughter, and that the loss of self-control had to be sudden and total.

Farrell testified that McQuillan had tried to have sex with her when she did not want to and had started strangling her before she went to the kitchen for a knife. She accepted that she stabbed him four times but said she remembered stabbing him only twice.

The judge said Farrell had told gardaí she intended to hurt McQuillan, not kill him. Former Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis gave evidence that he found four stab wounds and said there could have been potential survival with prompt medical intervention.

The judge said he would finish going through the evidence on Friday morning and then invite the jury to consider its verdict.

This report covers an earlier stage of the case. Later developments are not reported here.