The trial of a Galway farmer accused of murdering his aunt in a dispute over land has heard her death would have been “instantaneous.”

Michael Scott, of Gortanumera in Portumna, is accused of deliberately running over Chrissie Treacy on the 27th of April 2018.

When Dr Linda Mulligan arrived at the scene of Chrissie Treacy’s death, she found the 76-year-old face down on the concrete of the yard outside her farmhouse.

A large JCB teleporter tractor was parked nearby with black sheets covering its wheels and Dr Mulligan said she could see tyre marks on the back of her trousers.

During her post-mortem, she said she found catastrophic crush injuries running diagonally from the bottom of her right leg to the tips of her left hand.

She said death would have been instantaneous.

Under cross-examination, Dr Mulligan told the defence barrister that the evidence suggested Chrissie was facing away from the teleporter when she was crushed.

It is the prosecution’s case that her nephew, Michael Scott, deliberately ran over her as a result of a long-running dispute over jointly owned farmland.

He denies the charge, claiming it was a tragic accident.