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
THE ‘plot’ was laced with deceit, callousness, dishonesty, hatred, ma- nipulation, arrogance and greed, ac- cording to the prosecution.
What appeared incredible and al- most laughable actually contained all of those things, along with a bit of love, said Junior Counsel for the prosecution Una Ni Raifeartaigh, in her closing speech to the jury last Thursday.
“Love degenerating itself and cor- rupting itself into hatred,’ she said.
“This may not be a tragedy about dead bodies. It is a ridiculous plot be- tween two people whose lives should
never have intersected.
“Ms Collins was pouring poison into those emails. This shameful plot has managed to destroy lives. That’s what is tragic,” she said.
She said that PJ Howard’s affection, loyalty and trust was only returned by Sharon Collins’ betrayal, decep- tion and public humiliation.
“Can he ever go back to Ennis?” she asked.
She said that the lives of Robert and Niall Howard were “to be snuffed out because they just got in the way of Ms Collins’ greed.”
Equally tragic, she said, were Ms Collins’ two sons, “who sit there day after day, looking crushed, angry
that these things be said about their mother. She has betrayed her own sons, made them unwitting allies in her own defence.”
She said the hiring was done in a “very cold, very calculated and very businesslike” manner and the detail of the methods discussed was “nau- seating.”
“There was a lot of haggling over the price of these three lives,” she said.
“Inside and outside the courtroom, it may have sounded like the plot of a film or sometimes a cheap thrill- er. One can be reminded of the old saying, “Truth can be stranger than fiction’. Treachery lies in honeyed
words,” said Ms Ni Raifeartaigh.
She said there were “almost farci- cal” events, plots and sub-plots.
“It’s been a very, very long trial, an extraordinary trial, with a lot of evidence over Six or seven weeks. Some of it has been very technical,’ she said.
She said that our true characters are revealed by how we behave in private, when no-one is watching.
“Ms Collins said to me, ‘You are out to get a conviction.’ That’s wrong. Perhaps she has been watch- ing too many American programmes or reading too many American thrill- ers,” she said.
She said that Sharon Collins had
uttered “dark mutterings about be- ing set up” and Counsel urged the jury to take her stories and examine them. “Do they stand up? There are a couple of different ones going on at the same time. Maria Marconi is a complete figment of Sharon Collins’ imagination,’ she said.
She said that while there were “dark hints’, Ms Collins “won’t even come out and accuse the obvious people.”
She concluded her 100-minute speech with two lines from the Ea- gles’ song ‘Lyin’ Eyes: “You can’t hide those lyin’ eyes, and your smile is a thin disguise” and then quoted from Shakespeare, “A man may smile and smile and be a villain.”