This article is from page 21 of the 2008-06-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 21 JPG
ENNIS businessman PJ Howard found it difficult to understand why €100,000 had been demanded from his son to cancel contracts on his life and those of this two sons.
SCM Ke) (eM tomOUrU MOOT dsCNMONKIO eG est son Robert phoned him in Spain to notify him of the situation, he told him not to pay up.
“T found it very hard to understand. I told him to notify the guards and not to pay a thing,” he said.
Prosecutor Tom O’Connell asked the witness when was the first time he heard of Maria Marconi, who Ms Collins has claimed was tutoring her to become a novelist. He replied, “I
heard it from Sharon maybe a day or two after the office was broken helenae
“I was on the phone to Robert (about the break-in). Sharon prob- ably overheard me. She told me she had something to tell me. She said she’d answered a pop-up on the com- puter. She said she had contact with Maria Marconi over the past eight or nine months. She thought it might have something to do with the break- in,’ said Mr Howard.
He said that Ms Collins told him the contact was frequent and via Heer nee
“She said Maria Marconi had come to Ireland that year (2006) and she met her in the office. They were in
the office together for about three- quarters of an hour to an hour,” he said.
“During that time they spoke and Maria Marconi made use of the of- fice computer at the reception desk and that they then left after about three-quarters of an hour to an hour. She took her for a drive to Lahinch and Kilkee and around Ennis as well,” he said.
He said Ms Collins told him that they visited “our house and also that she used a computer there”’.
He said he had never heard of Ms Marconi previously and had never met her.
He said that his own email, pj@downesandhoward.com, did not
require a password.
Mr O’Connell read out de- tails of an email sent’ to leonard @ proxymarriages.com from an eircom email address in PJ Howard’s name in 2005.
The email stated, “We have tried several times over the past couple of weeks to ring you, but the calls were diverted to an answering machine. Sharon left a message over a week ago and again last night. I have to be honest, I am very worried and get- ting more sceptical as each day goes laa
However PJ Howard told the court he did not send that email. He said that an eircom email address had been set up in his name, but he did
not think he ever used it.
Mr Howard told the court that there was a Safe in his apartment in Spain and Ms Collins was aware of the combination.
On one occasion, in 2004, he said the safe contained a lot of cash for up to two weeks after a friend had sold a boat. He said there was also a safe on the boat and Ms Collins knew where the key was kept.
Asked how long she would spend in Spain, he replied, “Approximately half or three-quarters of the time I was there.”
Asked did she use internet cafes in Spain, he replied, “She did, yes.” Asked did she use the internet very much, he replied, “She did, yes.”