Trial judge Madam Justice McBride in the case of Strabane man Stephen McKinney, who denies murdering his wife during a County Fermanagh boating holiday, has begun outlining to jurors their responsibility before coming to any verdict.
er outline of the legal principles involved and a review of the evidence given during the 12-week Dungannon Crown Court trial comes after prosecution and defence counsel completed final submissions.
She told the jury of eight men and four women it was for them to "decide what actually happened".
Mr McKinney (44), of Castletown Square, Fintona, County Tyrone, denies murdering his 35-year-old wife, Lu Na, whose lifeless body was pulled from Lower Lough Erne at Devenish Island in the early hours of April 13, 2017.
The couple and their two children had moored their hire cruiser at the west jetty the previous evening at the start of a two-day surprise boat trip for the children and an early celebration of the McKinney's up and coming 14th wedding anniversary.
Today, defence QC Martin O'Rourke concluded his submissions by telling the jury of eight men and four women if there was a realistic possibility her death was an accident, the only proper verdict is not guilty.
Mr O'Rourke said his 999 calls for help provided the window through which they could actually examine the case and when properly analysed, it did not support the prosecution's circumstantial case and indeed supported Mr McKinney's.
The calls, he maintained, did not show Mrs McKinney died as the result of a deliberate act by her husband or that he murdered her as part of a "preplanned drowning" and there was nothing in the emergency calls which would exclude the reasonable possibility she died as the result of an accident.
If there is that possibility, then the prosecution case fails and the only proper verdict is one of not guilty, said Mr O'Rourke.
Last week, the prosecution described Mr McKinney as a “controlling, manipulative, coercive” man who was “determined to end his marriage on his terms, with the finality death offers". And that he had difficulty in keeping his story straight.
Prosecution QC Richard Weir had also claimed the 999 calls and what he subsequently told those who came to his aid and later in hospital was all "a con". Counsel further argued there were material differences in his accounts of what occurred.
Once Madam Justice McBride concludes her submissions to the jury, they will be asked to retire to consider their verdict in the case.