Closing speeches have begun in the trial of former Co Clare GP Pascal Carmody.
Mr Carmody denies a series of charges of obtaining money by false pretences from terminally cancer patients by promising to cure them with photodynamic therapy.
On the 16th day of the trial, counsel for the prosecution, Denis Vaughan Buckley, began summing up his side’s evidence to the 11-member jury.
He said they must decide Mr Carmody's guilt or innocence on the facts, adding that they alone are the judges of the facts.
He also said they would not be human if they did not have sympathy for Mr Carmody, a man on trial for very serious offences, nor indeed if they did not have sympathy for the families of those cancer patients who had died.
However, he said they, the jury, must leave sympathy out of their decision.
Mr Vaughan Buckley submitted that on the evidence of the families and the other medical experts who were witnesses for the prosecution, the accused is guilty.
However, he said if on the evidence the jury are satisfied that Mr Carmody did not make a promise to cure these patients of cancer, they had to acquit him.
He pointed out Mr Carmody denies he ever made false promises, but the families of John J Gallagher, John Sheridan and 15-year-old Conor Sullivan, all of whom have died, gave evidence that Mr. Carmody did promise to cure their loved ones of cancer.
