12th February 2021
The trial continues. There was more forensic evidence today, this time from the searches of the Butler brothers’ and Stuart Hatton’s houses. Ruby told the court that a bonfire in Terry Butler’s back garden had the remains of clothes, shoes and a knotted rope in it. Defence Counsel made a big thing of her inability to say for certain that the rope was the one that had been used to kill Harry, but looking at the jury’s faces, I don’t think they were convinced. The evidence about traces of cocaine being found in a cupboard in Shane Butler’s house wasn’t of any great importance, given that they’d already pleaded guilty on the drugs charges, but I suppose it all builds up a picture in the jury’s minds of a gang of criminals who would stop at mothing.