A pathologist has told Kieran Greene's murder trial that he found three fractures to Patricia O'Connor's skull during a post-mortem examination.

Mr Greene is accused of killing his partner's mother in the bathroom of the home they shared at Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham in May 2017.

When Mr Greene handed himself in to Gardaí two weeks after he is alleged to have murdered Patricia O'Connor, he told them he buried her in a shallow grave in Wexford - before returning a few days later to dismember her and scatter her remains up the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains.

In the interviews that followed his arrest, he claimed she slipped and hit her head as they struggled in the bathroom.

He claimed he hit her while defending himself after she came at him with a hurl. He said it was not planned.

This afternoon, Dr Michael Curtis told the jurors an examination of Ms O'Connor's head revealed three fractures to her skull.

He said the main point of contact was to the front, right-hand side of the skull - and he concluded that she died from blunt force trauma to the head.

He concluded that the act of dismemberment was most probably carried out with a power tool like a power saw, and he was of the opinion that her hands were possibly removed with a handheld saw.

Reporting by Frank Greaney