Father tells how he found daughter in bedroom

Owen McLaughlin's resonant voice faltered only once as he described to the court for the second time how he found his daughter's body in the bedroom of her south Dublin home on a February morning two years ago.

"I saw my daughter," he said at a lower pitch. "I put my hand on her forearm and I knew she was dead. I put my hand on her leg and I knew she was dead."

After the false start of a discharged jury last week, witnesses passed briskly before a newly-selected jury of eight women and four men at court No 3 yesterday, unspooling their recollections of Tuesday, February 28th 2006 - the day Siobhán Kearney was found dead at her home in Goatstown.

Earlier, Brian Kearney (50) of Carnroe, Knocknashee, Goatstown, pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife.

Throughout the day Mr Kearney - dressed in a suit and tie, a laptop case at his feet and a wedding ring on his left hand - kept his body at an angle to the public gallery, his legs crossed and his face turned towards the bench. Beside him were his brother and his daughter. Occasionally he would sip from a bottle of Ballygowan; mostly, though, he just listened.

A few yards away, Siobhán's family - the McLaughlins - sat together in the belly of the clammy courtroom: the deceased woman's parents Owen and Deirdre, their daughters Ann Marie, Brighid, Niamh, Deirdre and Aisling - all dressed in black - and their son Owen.

They looked on inscrutably as Owen told prosecuting counsel Denis Vaughan Buckley how he forced his way into Siobhán's bedroom that morning after seeing some ruffled bedclothes through the keyhole. "I shouted Siobhán's name three or four times very loud and with no response I put my shoulder to the door and I ran at it with my shoulder and I used my feet and I broke the door down."

He had been called to the house by Siobhán's younger sister Niamh, who had arrived at 9.30am to find Siobhán and Brian's three-year-old son Dan walking around the house on his own.

Some time later, Brian Kearney arrived at the house, and it was Owen who told him his wife was dead. "He put his hands to his head, he turned his back to me and he said words to the effect: 'Oh my God'," said Owen McLaughlin.

Siobhán's mother Deirdre recalled telling "Brian Kearney" that she was sorry that such an awful thing had happened. "He said to me: 'We were going to be together forever'." But there were problems in the marriage, Deirdre believed, and it was her understanding that Siobhán was in the process of leaving the accused.

During more than five hours of evidence in a case that will, according to Mr Vaughan Buckley, rely substantially on circumstantial evidence, the court also heard from another of Siobhán's sisters, Brighid McLaughlin.

Something Brian said to her on the 28th stuck in her mind: "Poor you, Brighid, and all that happened to you and Michael - something like that." Brighid's husband, Michael, had died three years earlier, in July 2003.

As Brighid said this, something fell from a table in the courtroom, causing a dull thump and momentarily startling the engrossed public gallery. Heads turned back to Brighid. "I thought it was an odd thing to say," she resumed. "Extremely odd."

Leaning close to the microphone, she also recalled a phone call from Brian Kearney some time in 2005. He was worried about Siobhán - her nerves were at her, and he thought she needed to be admitted to St John of God's. "I rang her immediately and she said she never had any intention of going to St John of God's. She was absolutely fine."

Brighid said she was aware that her sister had been admitted in 1999 but the reason was "stress from living with Brian". Deirdre Kearney had earlier cited overwork.

In his opening speech, Mr Vaughan Buckley told the jury that the prosecution's case was that Siobhán Kearney had died from strangulation that had been made to look like suicide.

A paramedic was in the witness box when Mr Justice White brought the day to an end just before 4pm. With so much to absorb, and knowing that there may be four weeks more to come, the court rose with some relief.