Alison O'Riordan and Brian Kavanagh Just a few days into Ruth Lawrence's trial, which was being heard 11 years after the Garda investigation began, prosecution counsel Michael O'Higgins SC told the judge in the absence of the jury that he had some "unexpected news". Counsel told the court that Jason Symes, one of the two key witnesses in the case, had been admitted to hospital as an acute patient after suffering a heart attack.