This article is from page 12 of the 2008-07-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
SOMEBODY in Ireland checked the credit limit of a Clare man’s Ameri- can Express card, while his partner and the Las Vegas poker dealer she is accused of conspiring with to kill him and his two sons were both out of the country, the trial was told on Friday. Garda Annette Ryan said that two calls had been made to American Express Card Services on September 22, 2006 from the offices of Downes and Howard, the property investment
business run by Mr Howard and his sons.
The jury has also heard that on Sep- tember 19, two flights to Ireland on US airlines were charged to the card in the names of Essam Eid and his wife Teresa Engle. A hotel booking with Alpha Reservations was made on the same date.
Gda Ryan told the trial that phone records showed over 70 phone calls between phones related to Ms Collins and those registered to Mr Eid.
She said that the location of the
calls from Ms Collins’ phones cor- responded to her movements between Ireland and Spain, where Mr Howard owned an apartment.
Garda Ryan said she had not investi- gated American numbers dialled from the landline in Ballybeg house, where Ms Collins lived with Mr Howard, because they were not related to the Garda investigation.
Detective Garda Brendan Rouine told Paul O’Higgins SC, defending Ms Collins, in cross-examination, that he had taken as accurate a record
of Ms Collins’ Garda interviews as he could.
“We keep writing and keep it as accurate as we can. We don’t have the facility of a stenographer and no Shorthand,” he said.
He told Mr O’Higgins that he had not recorded a complaint by Ms Col- lins that her words were not being recorded accurately because he was concerned with accurately recording the questions put to her.
He said that Ms Collins had been read over the statement and asked to
sign them if she agreed they were a fair representation of what had been said. She had signed most of the Neos ale
Mr O’Higgins said it was impossible for the jury to watch the video record- ings of the interviews since an earlier attempt to show one in court had en- countered technical problems.
Tom O’Connell SC, prosecuting, replied that the defence had not pre- viously complained about the re- cordings and he was willing to show Weloeen