The jury in the Catherine Nevin murder trial has been sent to a hotel overnight and will resume its deliberations in the morning. The jurors spent just over three hours considering their verdicts this afternoon of the four charges, three of soliciting and one of murder. The jury is due back in the Central Criminal Court in the morning.
Catherine Nevin stared straight ahead, her hands lightly clasped, this afternoon when Miss Justice Mella Carroll told the jury "its now over to you" and sent them out to begin their deliberations. They heard evidence from over 180 witnesses and lengthy closing speeches over 38 days. It is now their job to decide Catherine Nevin's fate. They have to consider the three soliciting charges first before they can go on to consider the murder charge.
There was little expectation of an early verdict from the jury. After over an hour they requested some milk, and trays of sandwiches were delivered to the jury room shortly afterwards. In their absence the legal teams were still busy making submissions to Miss Justice Mella Carroll and shortly after six o’clock she called the jury back to clarify some elements of the evidence she had summarised.
It had been a long day for everyone at the Central Criminal Court and by 6.30 the judge decided the jurors deserved a night's rest and she sequestered them in a city hotel warning them not to talk to anyone about the trial. Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock the jury will return to the jury room in court number 4 and resume the difficult task of deciding this case.
Catherine Nevin then left for home accompanied, as she has been throughout the trial, by her brother and sister. Tom Nevin's four brothers and three sisters, who have also attended the trial daily, surrounded by a number of relations left by a different exit.
