Court gripped by reading of statement

“NOW I will tell you what happened.” At the first line, the court fell silent and all eyes fixed on Chief Insp Luciano Gerard on the stand.

It took the detective more than 15 minutes to read into the record every word of the detailed signed confession given to police by Avinash Treebhoowon, the younger of the two accused hotel workers, three days after Michaela McAreavey’s killing at Legends Hotel.

Treebhoowon, wearing a cream shirt that looked a size too big for his slight frame, was made to stand while the statement was read aloud in Mauritian Creole. Insp Gerard was just four feet to his left, but the 31-year-old stared ahead and didn’t look at him once.

On January 10th, last year, according to Treebhoowon’s statement, one of the rooms assigned to him for cleaning was 1025, where John and Michaela McAreavey were staying. He had been told they were honeymooners. At about 2.10pm, having been briefed by his supervisor (and now co-defendant) Sandeep Moneea, he went into the room, turned the double-lock to prop the door open and got to work. He washed the sink, the toilet and the bath, then started to make the bed.

While Treebhoowon was dusting the room, he spotted a black wallet on the dressing table with some notes sticking out of it. It had been there the day before as well. He decided to steal one or two notes. But first, he stepped outside to see if anyone was coming. Then he went into the room next door to see if anyone was on the terrace.

“I went back to room 1025. The door was slightly open. I saw Sandeep in room 1025, standing on the steps of the bathroom . . . He asked me if everything was alright. I told him, ‘There is a wallet, let’s take a few notes and divide it.’ I took off the double-lock and closed the door.”

As Gerard spoke, the defendants’ family members craned their necks for a better view. A few rows in front of them, Brendan and Claire McAreavey – John’s father and sister – listened intently.

Treebhoowon took the wallet from the dressing table, he said, and noticed that there were a lot of 100 and 200 rupee notes inside. But as soon as he picked it up, he heard the sound of a keycard in the door.

“The door opened and I saw a woman. It was the first time I saw her. She was white, had brown hair, slim . . . and she had a pale-blue bikini. As soon as she entered, she saw the wallet in my hand . . . She shouted and told me, ‘What are you doing, why are you searching?’ She seemed angry. I got scared. At that time, Sandeep was still in the bathroom.

“The woman came closer to me. I tried to go in the direction of the door and she stopped me. Then with my right hand I pushed her and she fell on her back.”

As Treebhoowon recalled it three days later, he thought Michaela must have seen Moneea at about that point. “She was screaming and I said to Sandeep, ‘Let’s stop her from screaming’.”

Over the seven days of the trial so far, the two defendants have sat side-by-side in court but have not exchanged a single word or even acknowledged one another’s presence. As Treebhoowon’s confession was read out, Moneea stared at his former colleague. At one point, he smirked and shook his head.

In his statement, Treebhoowon said that when Michaela was on the ground, he grabbed her feet and held them with his two arms. “Sandeep came next to her and sat, and with one hand – left or right, I cannot remember – pressed on her neck to stop her screaming. With the other hand he pressed on her shoulders.”

He continued pressing for “a minute or so”. “While he was pressing, she was struggling and he continued to press until she lost consciousness. She was breathing but she couldn’t speak.”

Treebhoowon and Moneea then picked her up, he told police, and placed her in the bathtub to wash away any fingerprints. They left room 1025 and walked off in different directions.

“When we threw the woman on the floor, Sandeep said ‘We have to kill her because she will report us and she will recognise us’. If the woman had not come in, we would have stolen the money. We had no reason to kill her. It was because she saw us that we had to kill her. I regret what happened and ask for forgiveness.”

Treebhoowon has claimed this confession was forced by police. He also denies the words he is recorded in police logs as having said to his father. The entry quotes him saying “Forget your son, I have made a mistake” and notes he burst into tears.