The jury in the Tipperary murder trial has heard the accused, Patrick Quirke, has no criminal history or previous convictions and had never come to garda attention before 2011.
A senior investigating garda was giving evidence in the trial of Patrick Quirke, of Breanshamore, Co Tipperary, who is accused of murdering Bobby Ryan, a part time DJ known as Mr Moonlight.
Mr Quirke has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan at an unknown location on a date between 3 June 2011 and 30 April 2013.
Mr Ryan's body was found in a disused run off tank at his girlfriend Mary Lowry's farm two years after he went missing.
The farm was being leased by Patrick Quirke, who had previously been in a relationship with Ms Lowry.
Chief Superintendent Dominic Hayes confirmed to defence counsel Lorcan Staines that Mr Quirke was charged in 2012 with burglary of Mary Lowry's home and with possession of a key but the Director of Public Prosecutions directed these charges be withdrawn when the case reached court.
Chief Supt Hayes agreed with Mr Staines that apart from that, Mr Quirke had no criminal history and was never suspected of any crime before he was charged with the murder of Bobby Ryan.
The witness was also cross examined about the investigation into Mr Ryan's disappearance and the murder investigation.
It was put to him by Mr Staines that there was a "systems failure" which led to fingerprints from Bobby Ryan's van and from items found in it in 2011 not being tested until this year.
Mr Staines said the prints from the van were not checked against those of the accused until January 2019 and prints from the diary and driver's license were not tested until last Thursday.
Chief Supt Hayes said the finger prints should have been tested before then. He said if so called "elimination prints" were sent to Garda Headquarters he would have expected them to be tested before this year.
Chief Supt Hayes did not agree with Mr Staines that there was a "dearth" of photographs or film footage from the searches for Bobby Ryan immediately after he went missing in June 2011.
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The witness said that at the time it was a missing persons investigation and no crime was suspected.
He said there was always a possibility that Bobby Ryan would be found alive. He said it was not always the case that photographs or CCTV footage would be retained in a missing persons investigation.
It was also put to him that the investigation team was "badly let down" by former pathologist Dr Khalid Jaber who did not attend the scene where Mr Ryan's remains were discovered.
Chief Supt Hayes said the absence of the pathologist did not negatively impact on the examination of the scene as far as he was concerned.
He said the best person to assist him at the scene was the experienced crime scene manager.
At that time it was "not untold" that a pathologist would not attend a crime scene and with new developments he believed it was "the exception rather than the rule" for a pathologist to attend a scene.
It was put to him that two senior pathologists had given evidence to the trial to say the scene was so unusual it would have been important to attend.
The witness also told the jury it was not apparent to him that Bobby Ryan's body was naked before or after its removal from the tank.
He said he was surprised to hear after the post-mortem that no clothing was found on the remains.
He also said he believed the breaking of the concrete slab as it was removed from the top of the tank did not cause any injury to Mr Ryan's remains.
He said the debris that fell into the tank was small and in his view would not have caused any injury.
He did not believe it was a significant event and did not tell the pathologist it had happened.
It was put to him that two leading pathologists Dr Michael Curtis and Professor Jack Crane had said in their evidence that this would have been an important piece of information.
Lorcan Staines said both Dr Curtis and Professor Crane said they could not rule out debris from the lid causing an injury to the remains.
The witness replied: "The debris I saw was very small and in my opinion none of that would cause damage to the body."
Mr Staines also put it to him that 16 people were present when the slab was being removed from the tank but not one mentioned it in their statement.
Mr Staines also said there was no mention of the slab breaking in a 40-page summary presentation of the case which was prepared by gardaí.
The witness said statements could not be made in anticipation of what might arise at a trial or what might be raised by a defence team.
He was also asked by defence counsel why the garda sub aqua team was not asked to assist in the removal of the remains when they are specially trained to work in tight spaces.
Chief Supt Hayes said the sub aqua unit was trained to recover bodies from water but not forensically trained.
He said the best person to advise at the scene was the Garda crime scene manager who decided that the fire brigade should remove the body from the tank.
He said: "The best equipped person to advise us was crime scene manager and he takes precedence over anything else and he was satisfied to allow the fire brigade to recover the body."
His evidence continues tomorrow.
