A FORENSIC scientist has told a murder trial jury in Dublin that he found no traces of petrol diesel oil or paraffin oil on samples taken from a house where a woman and baby girl died in a fire.
Mr Liam Fleury and he was given samples from the house at Butterfield Avenue in Rathfarnham after a fire there in September, 1992. Tests using gas chromatography did not show any hydrocarbon accelerants in any of the 10 samples.
He was giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court on the ninth day of the trial of a publican, Mr Francis McCann (36) who has denied the murders of his wife, Esther (36), and 18 month old Jessica.
The jury had heard that Jessica was a blood relative of the defendant but not a child of his marriage to Esther. The prosecution has claimed that Mr McCann arranged the fatal fire because he did not want to tell his wife why the Adoption Board had refused their adoption application.
The jury has heard that Mr, McCann, who owned The Cooperage Pub in Blessington, Co Wicklow, had complained to gardai of threatening phone calls, to the pub, and his home.
Mr Fleury, a chemist at the Forensic Science Laboratory, said he was also given paint brushes and paint taken from the garage at the house and a paint sample, from a wall at The Cooperage but, the paint did not match the paint on the brushes or in the paint tins.
Cross examined by Mr Barry White SC, for McCann, Mr Fleury said he had received 10 unlabelled sealed bags and he could not tell from which area of the fire they had come.
The trial before Mr Justice Carney and the jury continues today.