'I could forgive my dad for killing mum - if he just told the truth'

The daughter of a man who was found guilty of his wife's manslaughter, has revealed that she might have been able to forgive him if he had confessed the truth.

Georgia, now 31, was a mere 16 when her 46-year-old mother Celine Cawley, who was a producer, was tragically killed at their family home in Howth, an Irish village on the Howth Peninsula, east of central Dublin, on December 15, 2008, leading to her father Eamon Lillis being jailed for her manslaughter. Mr Lillis was convicted by a jury and sentenced to six years and 11 months behind bars. He was released in April 2015 with remission.

The woman, who now runs an equine therapeutic riding centre in Skerries, Co Dublin, has not been in touch with her father since he was incarcerated in February 2010 and asserts she never wants to see him again. However, she admitted that if he had been honest about the events of the day Celine was killed, she might have found it in her heart to forgive him. Georgia was forced to live with her father in the house where her mother was murdered while they awaited his trial.

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During this period, Georgia began to realise that her father had lied about discovering his wife dead, initially alleging a masked intruder had attacked and killed her, reports the Irish Mirror. "I've always been brought up to tell the truth, and no matter what it is, no matter how hard the truth is, just say the f**king truth," Georgia expressed in RTE Radio 1's documentary on 'One Heart and Soul Horses', set to air on Saturday at 2pm.

"So if he said to me, listen, Georgia, hypothetically, mum and I got in a fight. It escalated. I did this thing. It was wrong. I fully admit to it. You know, I'm sorry. Then possibly I could have seen a way to forgive him, because I'm a forgiving person."

"But it was the fact that he thought that he could orchestrate this lie and get away with it, so to speak, and then continue living his life as if nothing happened," Georgia revealed. She also recounted how, during the trial, Eamon would come home every day and erupt in anger when things didn't go his way.

"I remember he got really angry and he kicked over a dog water bowl or something, and I went, Oh, that's my mum died. He squared up to me. But I'm probably the same height, or taller than my dad, so I squared up as well," she disclosed, noting: "And I said to him 'Go for it', you taught me how to box as a kid, and that's when I went, Okay, that's why, that's what happened."

Georgia also spoke about becoming effectively an orphan, mentioning how horses and other animals provided comfort during the lonely times since the heart-wrenching episode. She said: "To me, my dad died on December 15, 2008 as well because the person after that was a completely different person.

"He left €50 on the table and went to prison. I just thought, surely not. And then surely it was. I was in the middle of Fifth Year and he in his black trench coat walked out of the house and that was the last I saw of him."

Tragic Celine, a former model and the brains behind the ad production company 'Toy Town Films', also snagged a fleeting role in the iconic James Bond flick 'A View to a Kill' alongside Roger Moore. Georgia confessed she's never watched the Bond movie her mum featured in, saying, "I've never seen the film. I should, but it's like, I think I've just a weird thing about James Bond, because my dad was obsessed with James Bond, so now I'm like, James Bond. I get the ick."

She revealed that her mum, who launched Toy Town Films back in 1992 the year Georgia was born, had zero tolerance for anyone "bullshitting her or lying" as she explained: "She'd take them out, she wouldn't put up with that stuff and especially in the industry she was in was so male dominated, you kind of have to be cut-throat like that. And it's funny to remember when all the papers came out first they were like 'Oh Celine the battleaxe'. But if she was a man, she'd be described as 'brave or a go-getter,' rather than bossy and stubborn."

Georgia praised her mum for not tolerating any nonsense and being incredibly kind-hearted. "She'd bend over backwards to help someone," Georgia reminisced. "I just remember her as such a good hugger. When you got a hug from her it was like proper. It was an all encompassing hug."

Additionally, Georgia expressed her frustration with the glamorisation of murderers, lamenting that victims often lose their voice. "I'm really sick to death of people glorifying murderers- people watching Making a Murderer or the Ted Bundy Tapes. It's just putting them up on a pedestal. I just don't understand it, like I suppose a lot of people haven't been affected by it.

"We don't know the victims, and I'm so sick of them not having a voice. And I'm so sick of the aftermath, like not only the victim themselves, the one that lost their life, but also their family members, not having a voice and not being remembered after it all."