Richard Satchwell was 'obsessed' with and 'possessive' of his wife Tina, her half-sister tells trial
Alison O’Riordan
Richard Satchwell was "obsessed" with and "possessive" of his wife Tina, her half-sister told his murder trial on Thursday, with the witness also giving evidence that Tina had confided that she "couldn't get away from" her husband.
Lorraine Howard (50), who is the first and only witness to give evidence on behalf of the accused man, told the 12 jurors on Thursday that Mr Satchwell was: "obsessive, wanting to know where Tina was all the time, who she was speaking to all the time, where she was going all the time".
Ms Howard said every friend Ms Satchwell would meet, the accused would find "some fault" with, while Tina's "friendship circle was getting smaller and smaller".
Tina's half sister told defence counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, that she thought the way Mr Satchwell acted was "controlling and just odd".
The witness also told defence counsel that she'd told gardaí that Tina Satchwell had a "vicious temper".
The trial has heard that on March 24th 2017, Mr Satchwell told gardaí that his wife Tina had left their home four days earlier but that he had no concerns over her welfare, feeling she had left due to a deterioration in their relationship.
The accused formally reported Ms Satchwell missing the following May, but her body was not discovered for over six years, when gardaí in October 2023, conducting "an invasive search" of the Satchwell home, found her decomposed remains in a grave that had been dug underneath the stairs.
When re-arrested on suspicion of Tina's murder after her body was removed from their Cork home, Mr Satchwell told gardaí that his wife "flew" at him with a chisel, that he fell backwards against the floor and described her death after he said he held her off by the belt of her bathrobe at her neck.
In her evidence, Ms Howard told Mr Grehan that for a long time she thought Tina was her aunt, but she found out at an early age that she was her biological half-sister.
The witness said she and Tina shared the same mother [Mary Collins] but had different fathers.
Ms Howard told counsel that Tina found out the truth "at her confirmation age", when she went looking for her birth certificate.
Asked how Tina had reacted, Ms Howard said: "Shock I suppose, and [she] felt maybe she had been lied to for a long period of her life"
Ms Howard said her grandmother, Florence Dingivan, who is now deceased, had raised Tina, and she [the witness] saw them as mother and daughter.
Half-sisters
Ms Howard said she and Tina, who was three years older, were not raised in the same house but lived across the road from each other. "We would have been over and back to each other every day..... We were best best friends".
Asked whether their relationship changed when Tina became aware they were half-sisters, Ms Howard said it had. "I think she felt resented and hurt, and in her eyes she was given away - that's not actually what happened - and I was kept," replied the witness.
Ms Howard said this had caused big distress for Tina, and sometimes she [the witness] "bore the brunt" of that. "We had years of being friends and would then fall out, nearly always about small things, her being given away and she would take her mother's side, who was in fact her grandmother [Florence], and I would take my mother's side," she continued.
"We had a very unique family set up and it caused problems in our family..it always came back to this issue that Tina felt somehow abandoned," she added.
The witness began to weep when Mr Grehan brought up their brother Tom taking his life in 2012. She said his death affected Tina as much as herself.
The witness cried as she told the jury: "Tina had two families, even now we have her remains back, half her ashes with my grandmother and half are with my brother Tom".
Ms Howard said she first met Mr Satchwell in her grandmother's house when she was 15 years old.
Asked how she would describe the relationship between Richard and Tina, Ms Howard said the accused used to call Tina his "trophy wife and girlfriend". "I didn't like that as a comment, I didn't think it was right to refer to someone as a trophy".
Mr Grehan asked the witness about a statement she made to Detective Garda David Kelleher in August 2020, before Tina's remains were discovered and Mr Satchwell was charged with his wife's murder.
Ms Howard said she believed Tina to be alive at the time and was angry with her, as she believed she was putting the family through "untold stress" and having "taken off with money".
She said she gave the statement in hurt and anger, saying: "I should have aimed this anger at Richard Satchwell".
The witness agreed that her views have been "revisited" since she discovered Tina was dead and buried, and Mr Satchwell was calling to her house "telling me all these lies".
Ms Howard agreed she recalled telling the detective in her statement that Richard was obsessed with Tina and knew she was "above his league", when asked to describe their relationship.
She told gardaí that Mr Satchwell had told her that if Tina came back through the door, he would still take her back; "that's how he liked it, just the two of them".
Spending money
Asked whether she had said anything about the balance in the relationship, Ms Howard, who was reading at times from her statement, told counsel: "I said Tina wore the trousers, which would be correct".
The witness agreed gardaí had asked her about Mr Satchwell spending money on Tina, and Ms Howard had said he would spend "every penny" on his wife "to dress her up".
"Was that a hard job to keep her?" asked Mr Grehan, to which the witness replied "absolutely". She also agreed she had used the phrase "high maintenance" in her statement to gardaí to describe Tina.
Mr Grehan also put it to the witness that she was asked about whether Tina might have depression.
Ms Howard said she had mental health concerns about what had happened with her own brother taking his life, and that Mr Satchwell had tried to portray Tina as depressed, showing her photos with Tina's hair not brushed and her eyes looking sad. "I came to the conclusion that maybe she had some kind of mental health issue".
Ms Howard said she had never seen any "violence" between the couple, despite her and her sister having "many arguments". "She never once went to put a hand towards me," the witness added.
She agreed she had described Tina's "Jekyll and Hyde personality" to gardaí - as they had "a dynamic relationship"; sometimes they would be friends and then wouldn't be.
Ms Howard said she told Det Gda Kelleher that Tina had a temper, but so did she.
She agreed with Mr Grehan that she had also told the officer about observing scratches on Mr Satchwell's back, but clarified on Thursday that she had no idea where they came from and had never said Tina had given them to the accused.
Ms Howard agreed she had also told gardaí about walking in on a conversation between Tina and her grandmother, when she [the witness] was 15 years old. "Tina was laughing and she said 'I slapped Richard on the face'".
"I didn't know the context and didn't hear the start or end of that conversation," Ms Howard told counsel.
Mr Grehan put it to the witness that she was asked about a comment Mr Satchwell had made - that if Tina ever left him and he came after her, she [Tina] would call the gardaí. "She knew she couldn't get away from him. She would confide in me he would follow her to the ends of the earth and she had no way of getting away from him," said the witness.
"You were also asked about having been told that Tina changed her Littlewoods account from her name to his name?" asked counsel. Ms Howard said Mr Satchwell had told her this.
"What was your comment in relation to that?" he asked. "I wouldn't say Richard was controlling but definitely possession. I didn't see him as controlling at the time but have since changed my opinion," she said.
"You were asked at the very end, would Tina take her own life?" asked the lawyer.
Ms Howard said she had concerns based on her family history and the narrative Richard fed her.
She also agreed she said Tina had loved herself.
Counsel told the witness that gardaí had asked her about scars the accused had on his head. Ms Howard said she had told gardaí that Mr Satchwell had shown her every scar on his body and blamed Tina for it. "If he had a paper cut he would blame Tina".
She said before Tina went missing, Mr Satchwell had never once described his wife as violent or aggressive in any form and then suddenly she was "violent and causing all kinds of damage to his person". "That was why I was so worried for her wellbeing, thinking she'd had some kind of mental breakdown to be subjecting him to this because that wasn’t Tina," said the witness.
"How did you describe her temper?" asked Mr Grehan. "I said she had a vicious temper and so did I," said Ms Howard.
The witness agreed with counsel she hadn't had a conversation with Tina for 15 years before she disappeared.
The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of five men and seven women, when closing speeches from counsel will begin.
Mr Satchwell (58), with an address at Grattan Street, Youghal, Co Cork has pleaded not guilty to murdering his 45-year-old wife Tina Satchwell - nee Dingivan - at that address between March 19 and March 20, 2017, both dates inclusive.
