Murder accused Richard Satchwell was ‘controlling and obsessive’, court told

A half-sister of a woman found buried under the stairs of her home in Co Cork has described murder accused Richard Satchwell as “controlling and obsessive”, a court has heard.

Lorraine Howard, 50, who is Tina Satchwell’s half sister, told the Central Criminal Court that Satchwell always wanted to know where his wife was, who she spoke to and where she was going.

Ms Howard also told the court that her sister had a lot of friends but that Satchwell would find some fault with them and her circle got “smaller and smaller”.

Satchwell, of Grattan Street in Youghal, is accused of murdering his wife between March 19 and 20 2017.

The 58-year-old, who is originally from Leicester in England, denies the charge.

Mrs Satchwell’s remains were found under the stairs in the living room of their Co Cork home in October 2023, six years after Satchwell reported her missing.

Asked to describe the relationship between Satchwell and his wife, Ms Howard replied: “Odd.”

She said: “He would call Tina his trophy wife, his trophy girlfriend. I didn’t like that phrase. I didn’t think it was right to refer to someone as their trophy.”

Giving evidence on behalf of the defence, Ms Howard said Satchwell was “obsessive”, that he wanted to know where she was, who she spoke to and where she was going.

She said that every friend Tina met, Satchwell would “find some fault with them”, that Tina had lots of friends but her circle became “smaller and smaller”.

“I didn’t like the way he was with her. I thought he was controlling and odd.”

Defence barrister Brendan Grehan asked the witness about a statement she made to gardai in May 2017.

Ms Howard said she made the statement at a time she believed her sister was still alive and that she was “angry with her”.

She said she believed Tina was putting her family through “untold stress” and that she had “taken off” with a lot of money.

She said she was told by Satchwell that Tina had been violent, and that she made the statement in “anger and hurt”. She said that she blamed her sister for putting their family through stress when Satchwell “was where I should have aimed this anger”.

Mr Grehan asked if her views on matters had been revised.

Ms Howard agreed, saying that they had since she discovered her sister was dead and buried and that Satchwell had been calling to her home and “telling all these lies”.

She was also asked about a statement she made in August 2020, in which she said that Satchwell was obsessed with his wife, and would never go off with anyone else.

She said that he was happy when it was just the two of them, adding in her statement that Tina “wore the trousers” in the relationship, and he spent every penny of his to “dress her up”.

She added that Mrs Satchwell was “high maintenance”.

In court she said she was concerned about her sister’s mental health because of what happened in their own family, including the death of her brother, Tom.

She said that after her sister went missing, Satchwell showed her pictures of her with unbrushed hair and “looking sad”.

She told the court she came to a conclusion that Tina had some kind of mental health issue, which she thought would explain “this person he was describing”, this “violent person that was throwing cups at him, this person that was extremely violent”.

She told the court that she and her sister had many arguments but that Tina had never once put a hand out to her.

Ms Howard agreed that in her statement she described her sister as a “Jekyll and Hyde”, that she had a temper and that they would scream at each other.

“She had a temper and so did I,” she told the court.

Asked about scratches she saw on Satchwell’s back, she said she did not know where they came from, that he never said Tina was responsible for them.

She told the court that Satchwell worked in building and her husband also worked in building and was “always covered in scratches”.

Asked about a comment in her statement in which she said that Mrs Satchwell told her she had once slapped her husband, Ms Howard said it happened when she was aged 15 and she had walked in on a conversation between her sister and her grandmother.

When she asked Mrs Satchwell about it, she was told by her sister that she “slapped Richard on the face”.

She said that her sister knew she could not get away from Satchwell, and that she confided in her that he would follow her to the end of the Earth and she had “no way of getting away from him”.

Ms Howard said she revised her views made in her 2020 statement after things came to light.

She said that after her sister disappeared, Satchwell would show her every scar and paper cut on him and blame her sister for it.

She told the court that he had never previously described Tina as violent or aggressive or any “other form of that”. She said the accusations happened after she went missing, that Tina was “suddenly violent and causing all sorts of damage to his person”.

“That is why I was so concerned as I thought she must be having some sort of mental breakdown as she wouldn’t do this to Richard, as that wasn’t Tina.”

She said she had not spoken to her sister for some 15 years before she went missing.

The court heard that for part of her childhood she thought Tina was her aunt, but that at an early age she discovered she was her biological half sister.

Both had same mother but different fathers.

She said Mrs Satchwell learned who her biological mother was when she went to look for her birth certificate before her confirmation.

She told the court that her sister was shocked and felt she had been lied to for a long period of her life.

Mrs Satchwell was raised by her grandmother, Florence, who she believed was her mother, she told the court.

“I saw them as mother and daughter. They got on really well,” she added.

The half-sisters were raised in separate households and lived across the road from each other.

Ms Howard said they would have been in each other’s homes every day,

She said there were three years age difference between them and they were best friends growing up.

They went to school together, played together and slept in each other’s homes.

Asked if Mrs Satchwell’s relationship with her changed when she became aware they were sisters, she said: “It did. She was resentful and felt hurt that in her eyes she was given away, which was not what happened. That I was kept but I was the next oldest child in that family and that caused big stress for her. I bore the brunt of that.

“That was an on and off thing for years. Years of being friends and then falling out.”

She said it was a “bone of contention”.

She said that Mrs Satchwell and the woman who raised her, Florence, were close and she often visited her.

She also said that there were years where Tina was in her life and years where she not in her life, that there were good years and bad years, good times and bad times.

She told the court they had a unique family set-up, which caused problems.

“It always came back to this issue,” she added.

She said that Tina felt “somehow abandoned”.

Ms Howard’s brother died in 2012, which affected her and her sister. She said she and Mrs Satchwell were very close to him, that he was a lovely person.

“She (Tina) adored Tom and he adored her,” she added.

She said that Mrs Satchwell’s remains are in two graves – half of her ashes are with her grandmother (Florence) and the other half are with her brother, Tom.

The defence has concluded its evidence and the trial will move to closing speeches on Friday.