This article is from page 83 of the 2008-05-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 83 JPG
FLANKED by her sons, Gary and David, Sharon Collins sits at the back of the packed courtroom. Wear- ing a black trousers suit and white blouse, the petite blonde clutches a bottle of water and chews gum. She looks around, regularly focusing her gaze on Prosecutor Tom O’Connell, as he outlines the bizarre details of the case.
Just a few people separate her from her co-accused, Essam Eid, who sits to her right, wearing a cream-col- oured shirt and red and blue striped tie under a Nike sports jacket.
And another couple of bodies sepa- rate him from the alleged targets. PJ, Robert and Niall Howard sit together quietly in the middle of the single row of seating.
Like the other 50 or so other peo- ple in courtroom number 16 on the second floor of the Four Courts, they listen silently as the court hears that Ms Collins had been “anxious and agitating” to marry her lover, busi- nessman PJ Howard.
Ms Collins, who turned 45 just 10 days before the trial opened, wanted to wipe out the Howard family in or- der to gain from PJ’s inheritance. Or so the prosecution claims.
References to ‘the devil in the red dress’, a mysterious woman called Maria Marconi, killing ‘three birds in one stone’ for $US90,000, com- puter searches for a hitman, email discussions on how best to wipe out a family, the discovery of ricin in a prison cell and plans to poison two young men in their 20s, all cap- ture the attention of the jury over a lengthy opening statement.
Even before the outline of the al- legations 1s presented to the packed court, Mr Justice Roderick Murphy
warns the 12 jurors — sitting diago- nally across the room from the ac- cused — to refrain from reading the
newspapers and instead concentrate on the evidence presented. And given the extraordinary de-
tail contained in Prosecutor Tom O’Connell’s opening statement, there is no doubt but that this case will cre-
ate a high level of publicity.
Silence descends upon the packed courtroom as Mr O’Connell tells the jury it is ‘an unusual and rather com- plex case with many elements’.
He acknowledges that it has taken ‘unusually’ long to open the case, noting that “because of the complex- ity of the case it’s essential’.
Repeated Keds Ks Neh Ke) hitmanforhire@yahoo.com prompt Mr O’Connell to tell the jury it will be engraved in their memories by the end of the case. The eight men and four women seated in the jury box listen intently as Mr O’Connell describes, in detail, email contact between ‘hit- man’ and lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie and agreement on how the three Howards were to be murdered.
Such is the level of detail that sev- eral of the jurors begin to take notes, only for Mr O’Connell to point out that they will be supplied with copies of the exact contents of those emails at a later stage.
And all of this presented in a court- room where space is in short supply. Seated behind the jury box is the me- dia area, which accommodates up to a dozen journalists each day.
Several of the gardai involved in the case are forced to stand close to the witness box, as the single row of seating in the room is occupied by both accused, the alleged targets and the few gardai fortunate enough to have seats.
But, after three days of the cramped conditions, the presiding judge makes it known that a more spacious courtroom, court number two in the Round Hall of the Four Courts, will be available for the remainder of the vated
Relief all round.