Paula Farrell pleads guilty to manslaughter in murder trial

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

Paula Farrell has pleaded not guilty to murder and guilty to the manslaughter of Wayne ‘Quilly’ McQuillan. The killing took place at her Drogheda home on 1 January 2014. The proceedings at the Central Criminal Court were reported on 25 March 2020.

In his closing address, prosecution counsel Gerard Clarke SC said Farrell intended to cause at least serious injury when she picked the biggest knife from a knife block and stabbed McQuillan four times. He called her allegation that McQuillan sexually attacked her an invented lie and said it had first been raised 16 months after his death.

Farrell testified that McQuillan had tried to have sex with her against her wishes and began strangling her before she went for a knife. She accepted stabbing him four times but said she remembered only two. Defence counsel Caroline Biggs SC said Farrell wanted to hurt him, not kill or seriously injure him, and had not realised she had used the biggest knife.

Biggs asked the jury to consider whether Farrell had formed the necessary intent and, if it found she had, the partial defence of provocation. She acknowledged inconsistencies in Farrell’s account but said she had remained consistent on the core issues, and pointed to injuries on both sides of her neck. Biggs said two psychiatrists had substantially favoured intoxication as the reason for the events but had also agreed mental factors played a role.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott was due to continue his charge to the jury.