By Eoin English

The husband of missing woman Tina Satchwell says he will take a lie detector test when he feels up to it.

Richard Satchwell made his comments after confirming in two interviews yesterday that he was jailed more than a decade ago for social welfare fraud.

As search teams spent an eighth day scouring Mitchel’s Wood, Castlemartyr, Co Cork, for evidence in relation to the disappearance of his wife, Tina, 45, last March, detectives ruled out a potential sighting of her in Dublin in January, which emerged last week.

Meanwhile, “items of interest”, understood to include fragments of clothing, have been found in different locations during the fingertip search of the 40-acre woodland. The items have been sent for forensic analysis, but it is unlikely they will be linked to Tina.

During interviews on the Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s RedFM and on TV3 yesterday, Mr Satchwell repeated his criticism of newspapers and rejected criticism that he “loves the sound of his own voice”.

He told Prendeville he was jailed for social welfare fraud but asked Tina not to visit him in prison.

“It was not an environment I would like her to be in,” he said. “I have never denied to anybody — anybody that has asked if I was in prison.”

He confirmed to TV3 later that he was jailed by Judge Michael Pattwell on December 12, 2003, and was released from Cork Prison on January 10, 2004, and denied he served time in the UK.

He told CRY Youghal Community radio at the weekend he would take a lie detector test when finished medication. Asked by the host when that might be, he said: “When I’m up enough not to try to commit suicide.”

Gardaí are following 250 separate lines of inquiry. Almost 50% of the woodland has been searched.

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.