The trial of a married Wicklow man accused of murdering a woman he had a one night stand with has heard she wanted money from him for an abortion.

Roy Webster, a cabinet maker from Ashbree in Ashford, Co. Wicklow, admits killing Anne Shortall on Good Friday 2015 but denies intending to do so.

Detective Garda Eoin Martin took a witness statement from Roy Webster on Easter Sunday 2015 – the day after Anne Shortall was reported missing.

Roy told him he’d known her for about two years, but only by name. He said they’d met through a mutual friend.
He said he met her while out for a few pints the previous Christmas and they ended up kissing.

The court heard previously that they slept together that night.

He told Detective Martin that he received a text from her a few months later that read: “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I’m pregnant”.

He said she claimed he was the father and he said that was impossible. HHe asked to see the test, but he said she refused to show him.

He said they met up and she told him she was going to London the following day for an abortion. He said he’d go “halves” if she proved it.

They met the next day, which was Good Friday.

He picked her up in Wicklow town in his work van and they drove down to The Murrough where he said he told her that unless she could prove she was pregnant, he wasn’t coughing up.

He later told Detective Sergeant Fergus O’Brien that she told him not to work about it, that she’d sort it herself.

He said they only spoke for a few minutes before she got out of the van and walked back towards Wicklow Town.

He said she didn’t seem vexed or in bad form and was quite calm when she walked back towards town.

It is the prosecution’s case that he beat her with a hammer in his van, tied her up and hid her body in his work shop, which is next to the home he shared with his wife and two children.

Mr. Webster has pleaded NOT guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter – a plea that wasn’t accepted by the DPP at the outset of this trial.

Our Courts Correspondent Frank Greaney reports: