Eamonn Lillis has been convicted by a jury of the manslaughter of his wife Celine Cawley at their Dublin home.

The 52 year old father of one stared ahead and gave no visible reaction as the verdict was handed down this evening.

 
It was a long wait – 9 and a half hours of deliberations –  and in the end you could hear a pin drop in the packed courtroom as the jury cleared Eamonn Lillis by a majority of ten to two on a charge of murder.

Instead finding him guilty of manslaughter, on the basis that the prosecution had not proved he had intended to kill his wife Celine Cawley.

The 46 year old mother of one was found by gardai lying in a pool of blood on decking at the back of the couple’s luxury home in Howth ten days before Christmas in 2008.

A Monday morning, it was the prosecution’s case that Eamonn Lillis murdered his wife by hitting her with a brick 3 times while their teenage daughter was at school.

It was Mr Lillis, a 52 year old TV ad executive, who made the 999 call to emergency services telling them his wife had been attacked by an intruder.

It was a lie he was to repeat again and again until the following January after his arrest when he admitted to his daughter – now aged 17, that there was no burglar and that he and Celine had had a row about domestic chores that escalated into violence.

He also told his young lover Jean Treacy about the fight.

He had started seeing the 32 year old masseuse who was engaged to another man just 8 weeks before Celine’s death.

On the stand, the accused denied causing his wife’s three head injuries which he said probably resulted from Celine falling on the decking twice – once by herself, the other as they struggled and he pushed her back to stop her biting his finger.

He said she may also have hit her head when he pushed her against the sitting room window’s edge and she let out an almighty scream .

The defence focused on the post mortem evidence that the wounds suggested only moderate force had been used – who, they argued, would use only moderate force if their intent was to kill.

Eamonn Lillis has been remanded on continuing bail and will be sentenced next Thursday.