Jury in trial of HSE addiction counsellor listen to recording of Lisa Thompson's murderer threatening to cut her throat

Alison O’Riordan

The jury in the trial of a HSE addiction counsellor have listened to a recording of the murderer she is accused of being the getaway driver for calling her a wh**e and threatening to cut her throat.

It is the prosecution case that the accused, mother-of-three Deirdre Arnold (42), drove murderer Brian McHugh to Lisa Thompson's home at Sandyhill Gardens in Ballymun, where she waited outside before driving him away from the scene and later checking him into a hotel in an effort to help him evade prosecution.

Under cross-examination at the Central Criminal Court today, Garda Fergus Burke told Patrick Gageby SC, that Ms Arnold went to Ballymun Garda Station by arrangement on April 22nd, 2020 and made a statement, where she indicated she was previously in a relationship with McHugh in 2019 and had reported a "substantial domestic violence and abuse matter" to Coolock Garda Station before getting an interim barring order.

However, the witness said when the matter went to court and McHugh was put into custody with consent to bail the accused "announced" that herself and McHugh were "making a go of the relationship", that she didn't want to make a complaint against him despite it being true and that she wasn't under duress.

Gda Burke went on to say that Ms Arnold came to see him again by appointment in June 2020 and indicated there were a number of incidents she hadn't reported to gardaí, including an apprehension she had that McHugh was going to kill her.

Mr Gageby referred to an occasion where Ms Arnold had recorded herself using McHugh's old phone in the garda station when she was withdrawing a statement against him.

Gda Burke said that McHugh's phone was seized during a search, and the recording was retrieved.

"The complaints of domestic abuse are that she was apprehensive about something being done [to her family], that she was being monitored by phone and had to leave the phone on in her pocket so McHugh could hear what was happening and he would go to work with her and stay in the car, does this ring a bell?" asked Mr Gageby. Gda Burke said it did, describing the pair's relationship as "toxic".

The witness said gardaí had tried "above and beyond" to progress the investigation by getting Ms Arnold to make a statement to gardaí, but it never came to pass.

He agreed that domestic abuse complaints from the accused against McHugh continued throughout 2021.

The defence then played a recording dated November 22nd, 2021, to the jury, where McHugh can be heard calling Ms Arnold "a dirty smelly blonde wh**e" and saying: "I'll cut your throat, if you keep trying to wind me up I'm going to hurt you....if you wind me up again you smelly dirty rotten wh**e you".

McHugh can also be heard saying: "I'm telling you if you wanna get the cops up for me you're fu**in dead. Wind me up one more time and you're dead".

Earlier, Detective Sergeant Fiona Maguire told Fiona Murphy SC, prosecuting, that she was in no doubt that a photograph of a fingermark on a jewellery valuation certificate was made by Ms Arnold's right middle finger.

The jury has heard that Ms Arnold gave no reply when asked by gardaí in an inference interview to account for her fingerprint on the jewellery valuation certificate, which was linked to Ms Thompson and was found in the accused's vehicle.

Another witness, Inspector James McDermott, who is the senior investigation officer in the case, said details of the ligature and strangulation of Ms Thompson had not been released into the public domain on June 18th and 19th, 2022, and were retained in the investigation room for operational reasons.

Ms Arnold's trial has been told that a text message was sent to McHugh's phone from a number linked to the accused, which read "I could of been like Lisa today strangle n stab" on June 19th, 2022 - over a month after Ms Thompson was found dead in her home.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Patrick McGrath and a jury of six men and five women, when closing speeches will take place.

Deirdre Arnold, with an address at Briarfield Grove, Kilbarrack, Dublin 5 is charged that on a date between May 9th, 2022, and May 10th, 2022, both dates inclusive, at a location within the State, did without reasonable excuse an act with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution of Brian McHugh, a person who had committed an arrestable offence, namely murder, whilst knowing or believing Brian McHugh to be guilty of the offence or of some other arrestable offence.

Ms Arnold is also charged that on a date between May 9th, 2022 and May 10th, 2022, both dates inclusive, at a location within the State, acted or embarked upon a course of conduct which had a tendency to and was intended to pervert the course of public justice.

Ms Arnold has pleaded not guilty to the two counts.