Paula Farrell murder trial continues after manslaughter plea

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

Paula Farrell pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. The case concerned the unlawful killing of Wayne ‘Quilly’ McQuillan at her Drogheda home on New Year’s Day 2014.

The proceedings were reported on 16 March 2020. Her trial was continuing at the Central Criminal Court before Mr Justice Paul McDermott.

Farrell told the trial that she and McQuillan had been drinking before the New Year. She said he tried to have sex with her against her wishes and began to strangle her. She said she thought she was dying and could not breathe.

She accepted that she had stabbed McQuillan four times but said she remembered stabbing him twice. She said she did not intend to kill him or cause him serious harm, but wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her.

In cross-examination, Gerard Clarke SC for the DPP put it to Farrell that her account of a sexual attack was fabricated. She denied this. Farrell accepted that she had not mentioned the attack in four Garda interviews; she said she had not wanted to believe it had happened again because she had been abused as a child.

The jury’s seating had been changed to allow social distancing during the coronavirus outbreak. Six jurors sat separately in the courtroom and six remained in the jury box with spaces between them.