Security camera footage showing the final movements of Jennifer Dornan as she walked home from a friend’s house after a night out has been played to a jury in Belfast.
he footage, compiled by the PSNI, was among a series of clips taken from various cameras and presented as evidence by the prosecution at the trial of a man accused of her murder.
The 30-year-old’s badly burnt body was found in the bedroom of her home at Hazel View in Lagmore, Belfast, by firefighters who attended a blaze at the property in the early hours of Sunday, August 2, 2015.
Raymond Martin Gabriel O’Neill (43) is accused of following Ms Dornan home before entering the house and stabbing her three times in the chest.
He is also accused of torching the house, which the Crown says was “presumably in order to destroy the scene of his crime”.
O’Neill, from Amcomri Street in Belfast, denies charges of murder and arson and is currently standing trial at Belfast Crown Court.
Footage taken from CCTV at a property in Hazel View showed Ms Dornan walking home with her shoes in her hand.
She had spent the evening socialising in the Devenish pub before going back to her friend’s house at Lagmore Avenue.
Also present at that address was O’Neill, who didn’t know Ms Dornan prior to events that weekend.
Ms Dornan left her friend’s home in the early hours and was captured on her neighbour’s CCTV at 2.53am on the short walk to her house.
After walking along Hazel View, she was recorded closing her garden gate and walking into her home.
The jury was also shown CCTV footage taken from the same neighbour’s camera at 3.12am, which captured a man holding a jacket over his face walking along Hazel View.
This male, whose face was completely hidden by the light-coloured jacket, was then filmed climbing over Ms Dornan’s front fence and into her garden.
He was recorded walking around both the house and Ms Dornan’s car parked outside a number of times, before being recorded at 4.18am leaving the property by again climbing over the front fence.
At the same time as the male was picked up on the camera leaving Ms Dornan’s home, light can be seen coming from her bedroom windows.
When asked what this flickering light could be, the PSNI Detective Constable who presented the CCTV compilation said: “From what we now know, I would suggest that’s flames we are seeing through the upstairs window.”
CCTV footage taken at 4.23am shows flames clearly visible in the second floor of Ms Dornan’s home.
At 4.55am the same camera recorded fire crews arriving to deal with the blaze.
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