A man who was charged with murdering his partner but maintained from the outset that she fell down the stairs of their home has been acquitted by a Central Criminal Court jury.
Following the not guilty verdict Justice Tara Burns thanked the jury of eight men and four women and told Renars Veigulis: “You are free to go.”
Mr Veigulis (32), a Latvian national with an address at Bridge street in Freshford, Co Kilkenny, was charged with murdering Rita Apine (29) at their home on or about May 14th, 2017.
Mr Veigulis maintained from the outset that he was playing with his daughter in the living room and heard a “boom, boom, boom” from the hall. When he looked into the hallway he saw Ms Apine at the bottom of the stairs with blood coming from her head.
A pathologist said Ms Apine’s injuries were not consistent with a simple fall down the stairs and that she had never seen some of the injuries caused by such a fall.
Mr Veigulis’s defence barrister Michael Bowman SC, instructed by Tony Collier Solicitors, asked the jury not to convict on the basis that the pathologist had not seen such injuries before. “You fall down stairs in as many ways as there are people who fall down stairs,” he said.
The jury took 10 hours and 21 minutes in their deliberations.
