This article is from page 12 of the 2008-07-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
IT was an important question and it was met by silence. Who could have had a motive to set Sharon Collins NiO Nem OLLOmOr-buetleent
Una Ni Raifeartaigh, BL for the prosecution, put it to Ms Collins, ‘You ve been hinting . ..Who has the motive to set you up?”
Ms Collins paused for a few sec- onds. Ms Ni Raifeartaigh waited. The response did arrive.
“IT have been brought down to the garda station. I’ve been questioned at length. I’ve been charged with crimes I certainly didn’t commit and would never commit. I’ve been put into prison. You couldn’t imagine the affect it’s having on my life. I’m not going to accuse anybody of anything when I don’t know,” she stated.
Ms Ni Raifeartaigh asked her could it have been PJ Howard, to which she replied, “No.”
“Who is left? Aren’t you suggesting it was one of the Howards?” asked COIN
“Well the guards said to me only a limited number of people have ac- cess to the office,” replied Ms Col- lins, to which Counsel quickly said, “The Howard boys. Why would the Howards set you up?”
Ms Collins replied, “You’d have to ask them that.”
Ms Ni Ratfeartaigh said _ the Howards wouldn’t make money out of Ms Collins as they had more than she. The witness accepted that the Howard brothers were “sitting on a big pile of money.”
Counsel asked could it be a case that the Howards wanted to get Ms Collins “out of the way” to which she replied that it was possible.
“You are with him for eight years?” asked Counsel, to which the witness replied, “Ten years now.”
She was asked was PJ Howard hu- miliated and replied, “I think if I heard somebody was planning to kill my two sons, I’d get over the humili- ation.”
“T know if I was shown the amount of evidence PJ was shown that some- one was trying to kill his two sons, I wouldn’t let pride get in the way,”
she added.
Counsel put it to the witness that PJ had not appeared in court since he had given evidence in the trial, to which she replied, “Had he a choice, after the humiliation he has been put through?” and said she was referring to the Gerry Ryan letter being read out.
She said that while she would not dispute that she had written the let- ter to the Gerry Ryan show, “I didn’t realise it was sent. It was an anony- mous and private matter.”
Asked was the ‘sexual preferences’ aspect of the letter correct, she said,
“Tt certainly was a topic that PJ and I had discussed.”
“To be quite honest with you, I don’t want to discuss this at all. I don’t see how this relates to murder. .. 1 don’t hate PJ. That kind of thing is a motive to leave somebody, not to kill somebody. I most certainly did not hate PJ,” she stated.
“T think sometimes a person might hate or dislike a quality or an ac- tion. You could love somebody but not necessarily like everything they did,’ she said.
Counsel said, “A package? I’d sug- gest to you the package is his money.”
Ms Collins replied, “Oh God, no.”
Asked three times were the contents in the letter true, she said, “Some of it was, but a lot of that letter wasn’t true and doesn’t give the full picture. I feel it shouldn’t have been used in here.”
She said the full letter, which ex- plained the full picture, had not been retrieved and said some of if might have been a bit “exaggerated.”
She said she felt PJ Howard had been “harmed in here. I think he very much wanted me to go into the box to give evidence.”
She agreed that PJ Howard had fre- quented transvestites and his desire for her to work as a prostitute was discussed between the two.
“Tt was mentioned. I most certainly didn’t like it. After that it was no longer an issue. It wasn’t mentioned to me again,” she said.
She said that PJ Howard had always told her if their relationship broke up, he would look after her.
“Tf I said to PJ, ‘It’s run its course,’ he would look after me extremely well,” she explained.
“T could have had a home and an in- come if I left PJ. You didn’t ask him that when he was in here. He most certainly would have provided for me with a home and an income,” she said.
Asked did PJ Howard verbally abuse her and throw tantrums, she laughed, “Yes and I might have given a bit myself.”