The Irish Scissor Sisters

by Mick McCaffrey

  Another man, John O’Toole, saw bruises on Kathleen’s face when she moved into his house and he got the impression that her partner was responsible. He said she was very nervous and seemed afraid that this man would come looking for her.

  Noor had regularly come to the attention of gardaí before his death and had amassed four previous convictions but never spent a night in jail. Although he was lucky to have less than a handful of convictions Farah was well known to gardaí, whether he was living in Dublin or Cork. They were frequently called out to deal with incidents involving him or Kathleen drinking excessively and were also well used to responding to domestic incidents.

  Noor appears on the garda PULSE crime recording system twelve times. He is named as a missing person from Tallaght on a PULSE incident report recorded on 30 March 2005, the day his body was found. A second entry that day lists him as the ‘injured party’ in a murder. The final entry was made on 12 July 2005, when he is described as a ‘found person’ in response to the previous missing persons’ report, which was probably made in error. His other appearances before his demise show Farah Swaleh Noor to be a man very fond of drink but with a tendency to get on the wrong side of the law when he was under the influence.

  He first came to the gardaí’s attention on 2 December 2000 following an ugly incident in Dublin. A bus driver was working on his normal Tallaght route, when he stopped to pick up two African men on the Harold’s Cross Road, near Rathmines. The pair refused to pay the proper fare and the driver wouldn’t allow them board the bus unless they had the full amount. The two men, Farah Swaleh Noor and a friend of his, became very abusive to the driver. They started cursing and shouting at him, displaying aggressive behaviour. The driver pleaded with them to calm down but they only got angrier and he had no choice but to contact the guards from his radio. A female garda from Rathmines Station attended the scene and had a word with the two offenders. She told them to calm down and go home or they would be arrested. Despite being warned by the garda, Farah Noor did not calm down and became far more agitated. He started shouting aggressively at the garda, the bus driver and members of the public. The officer called for back-up because the situation was getting more serious and a male colleague from the same station arrived minutes later. Noor then pushed and assaulted the female officer, before attacking her colleague. Yet more gardaí were summoned to the scene as Noor and his pal were out of control at this stage. The two men were threatening to attack innocent passers-by. A struggle ensued and the gardaí found it difficult to handcuff the two men, who were shouting and cursing at them in English and a foreign language. They were both eventually arrested on suspicion of assaulting a garda, obstruction of an officer and resisting arrest and were taken to Rathmines Garda Station, still mouthing abuse. Both men were bailed and were summonsed to appear before Dublin District Court on 17 September 2001. Noor was charged with assault contrary to the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act. He was convicted and sentenced to three months in jail but that was suspended. He was bound to keep the peace for twelve months and fined €190.46.

  Less than a year after his first conviction, Noor was again in trouble. Gardaí Ian Pemberton and John Farmer from Kill of the Grange Station in South Dublin responded to a domestic incident in Dun Laoghaire at 2.16 a.m. on 18 August 2002. A member of the public had made a complaint that an African man with a knife was threatening a female. They arrived at the scene and observed a man they later knew to be Farah Swaleh Noor drop a knife behind a wall, close to a house. Noor had spent the day drinking and the gardaí thought he was very drunk but he denied that the knife was his. Farah claimed he had never to have seen it before. He was arrested and taken to the station where an investigation into the incident was launched. He was interviewed on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon but still continued to maintain his innocence. Nobody was prepared to come forward and say they had seen the Kenyan with the knife in his hands so there was insufficient evidence to charge him. He was released and, although gardaí continued to investigate, he was never prosecuted. Had somebody been willing to finger Noor he could easily have found himself in jail for a minimum of three months because he was still bound to keep the peace from the incident the previous September and his sentence would likely have been re-imposed.

  When Farah moved to Cork with Kathleen in September 2002 he was in the city for a matter of just weeks before the demon drink got him noticed again. On 30 November Garda Garreth S. Kingston, who is attached to Anglesea Street Garda Station, was out on mobile patrol at 11 p.m. when he happened upon Noor in a very drunken state on North Gate Bridge. He spoke to Noor, who confirmed that he had been drinking heavily for most of the day. He was not causing anyone hassle so the garda cautioned the Kenyan and ordered him to go back to his flat, which he gave as being at 43 Heatherview Avenue.

  Noor kept out of trouble until 4 March 2003, when he appeared before a judge at Cork City Court charged with intoxication in a public place contrary to Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act (Public Order) 2004. This incident had happened at 1 a.m. on 20 February, when a garda spotted Farah in the middle of busy Leitrim Street without any top on. Garda Maurice Hickey issued a summons to Noor in the post and he appeared in person in court and pleaded guilty. He was fined €75.

  On 3 November 2003 Farah Noor phoned gardaí at McCurtain Street station at 6.15 p.m. about an incident that was alleged to have taken place on the Lower Glanmire Road. Noor claimed that he was walking down the road with Kathleen when two men in their early twenties, one wearing a black jacket and black trousers, the other dressed in a white jacket and white trousers, attacked him out of the blue, punching him in the face. Kathleen was a witness to the supposed assault but neither Farah nor his partner could give a good description of what these men looked like. They could only say that they were very drunk and outside Mama Mia’s restaurant when it happened. Garda Caroline O’Neill drove the patrol car around the area searching for these men but failed to find any trace. She noted that Kathleen and Farah had drink consumed. Gardaí went to Noor’s flat at 13 Quaker Road two weeks later and asked if he wanted to make an official complaint about this alleged assault. The Kenyan had sobered up at this stage and declined but thanked the guards for calling round.

  After almost two years in Cork, Farah and Kathleen moved back to Dublin on 14 September 2004. They stayed in the Mountainview B&B in Firhouse while they looked for somewhere more permanent.

  On 10 October Kathleen went to the manager of the B&B and confided that she wanted to leave because Farah was very violent towards her, jealous and possessive. She said she was afraid to leave him because he would come and find her wherever she went. The Health Board takes such complaints very seriously and Kathleen was moved to Lismore B&B in Drumcondra. The new accommodation was arranged for Kathleen on the understanding that she would not be in contact with Noor. Arrangements were also made for them to collect their Social Welfare money independently. As a result of the split, they were both paid unemployment benefits separately, each getting €138.80 a week. It later transpired that when Kathleen had complained about being in fear of the brutish Farah, she did it out of a desire to con more money out of the Social Welfare. The couple had most likely concocted the story because they knew that living apart they would be better off to the tune of €43.60 a week.

  The couple kept seeing each other and were still very much together. Farah’s violent habits, however, did not change. Gardaí Mark Dunlea, Timothy McCarthy and John O’Connell from Rathfarnham Garda Station were on patrol in a marked garda car at about 10 p.m. on 24 October, when they saw an African man repeatedly hitting a female who looked to be in her late forties. They immediately stopped the car at the Old Bawn Road, in Tallaght, and pulled the African away from the woman. The man was very drunk and told the gardaí his name was Farah Swaleh Noor. He gave his address as the Mountainview B&B, Firhouse. He was handcuffed and arrested on suspicion of assault and was taken to Rathfarnham Station. The female victim was Kathleen Mulhall an
d she wasn’t happy that her boyfriend was being taken away in a squad car. She told the guards that he was all right and to let him go. She refused to cooperate and make a statement against Farah and he was released without charge.

  Noor was abusive and violent towards Kathleen Mulhall beyond any shadow of a doubt but she always stayed with him for some reason. While she was living in Drumcondra, Farah had another of his regular run-ins with authority. He was walking on the Upper Drumcondra Road at around 7.45 p.m. on 20 November 2004, after a day’s heavy boozing. He opened up his trousers and started to urinate against a car. A passer-by challenged him and asked Farah what the hell he was doing. The decent citizen was sixty-one-years old but that didn’t stop the alcoholic Noor shouting obscenities at him. The man was from Ballymun and told Noor he had no business urinating on the street and said he should be ashamed of himself. The Kenyan was brave with lots of drink on board and walked up to the man and punched him in the face. Two young men, aged twenty and twenty-one, were also out walking and witnessed the assault and came to the good Samaritan’s aid. They pulled Noor off him and held him down while phoning the guards from a mobile phone. Garda Anthony McCabe from Whitehall Station responded to the 999 call and arrested Noor, who was shouting at the three men to let him go. He was arrested and taken to the garda station. Luckily, the sixty-one-year-old was not badly injured and was able to go home. Farah Swaleh Noor appeared before the Dublin District Court two days later, charged with intoxication in a public place and of threatening and abusive behaviour. He was convicted of both offences and the Probation Act was applied. He was bound to the peace for twelve months and fined €200.

  A few months later Noor was quizzed by gardaí after another violent incident. He attacked Christian Silva in the Parnell Mooney pub on St Patrick’s night 2005, punching him in the face with a pair of nail cutters. A uniformed officer spoke to Noor outside the pub but it’s doubtful whether Farah would have been prosecuted. A witness, Michael Dunne, told gardaí that Farah wasn’t at fault. Silva had also declined to make a complaint and never contacted the guards again to make a statement.

  This was the final time that Farah Swaleh Noor would appear on the gardaí’s radar until his dismembered body was fished out of the Royal Canal.

  from garda custody on 3 August, she came under sustained pressure at home to go and confess to the guards. Her father knew that Linda had snapped and murdered Farah Noor with Charlotte, after the Kenyan had made sexual advances towards her. The two of them spoke at length about what had happened. John knew that his daughter was having trouble sleeping and was in a dark place because of the murder. Linda was haunted by what she had done.

  She had initially been very cocky after being questioned and was going around the house saying, ‘They’ve nothing on us; we’re in the clear.’ She had thought that surviving twelve hours of police grilling meant that it was all over, but her confidence was to be short-lived. She hit the bottle hard and wasn’t looking after her kids properly. Linda’s Dad was left trying to work full-time and look after a house that often had nine people staying in it. Andrew and Marie were living with their father and with Linda and her children also in the house, it was very crowded.

  It got to the stage where his eldest daughter couldn’t even look at her children. It was almost as if she wasn’t their mother at all, she was so cold towards them. When she’d had her pregnancy scare in early April she’d realised that the last thing she wanted, at this difficult time in her life, was to have another child. When the hospital had told her it was a false alarm at least that had been one worry off her mind.

  As the days passed, Linda gradually began to realise that the murder investigation wasn’t going to go away. She knew that the guards would keep knocking at her door until they got to the truth. It was very tense in the house and Linda’s younger sister Marie hadn’t been talking to her since the arrests. When she heard that the police had searched the river at the back of the house belonging to John Mulhall’s employer, Marie lost the plot completely. She tackled her sister in the kitchen at Kilclare Gardens, shouting, ‘Loads of people who had nothing to do with the killing of Farah Noor are being dragged into Farah’s death.’ Marie warned Linda that if she didn’t go to the police and tell them what she knew then she’d go to Tallaght Garda Station herself. Marie threatened to tell the guards that Charlotte had confessed to her a couple of days after they carried out the murder.

  The two women had a blazing row and Linda said that she was in the clear and that the guards had no evidence. Their father was in the kitchen at the time and Marie said that if Linda didn’t come clean she would leave the house for good. She went away and John told Linda that things were getting too complicated. He said it would be better for everyone if she spoke to the police. She agreed and John then phoned Marie and told her that he was going to ring the guards. He said he would get them to come to see Linda because she’d agreed to tell them everything.

  John spoke to Sergeant Liam Hickey, who arranged a meeting with Detective Inspector Christy Mangan on the morning of 17 August. John met DI Mangan in Cork Street and told him to come over to the house in Tallaght later that evening to speak with Linda. He told the inspector that she knew where the head was buried. He said she was their only hope if they ever wanted to recover it.

  DI Mangan and Sgt Hickey called to 31 Kilclare Gardens at 7.30 p.m. that evening. John welcomed them in and they sat in the front room of the house, waiting for Linda to come back from Kevin Street, where she was picking up her dole cheque. John rang her mobile a few times and she told him that she was nearly home and would see the police then. At 8.45 p.m. there was still no sign of her so the two guards left and told John Mulhall that they’d rearrange the meeting for a few days later. Linda was not in town collecting her dole. She was so messed up over what she had done to Farah that she had cut her arms in what could have been a very amateurish suicide attempt. Either way she was in Tallaght Hospital getting treatment.

  Two days later, on 19 August, the same gardaí again went to the house. They shook John Mulhall’s hand as he invited them into the front room where they eagerly waited to meet Linda. The mother-of-four came into the room, sat on a chair and lit a cigarette.

  DI Christy Mangan told Linda her father had asked them to come to speak with her about the death of Farah Swaleh Noor and asked if she had anything to tell them. She was very nervous and told him she knew nothing about Farah’s murder and couldn’t help them. She admitted to them that she had cut her arms on purpose and showed them her injuries but she said she was grand and had previously self-harmed. Her father served tea while she chatted with the detectives, who informed her that the investigation was not going to go away and that they were searching a stretch of river in Leixlip as part of the investigation.

  Linda listened to what the men had to say but again said that she couldn’t help them. DI Mangan said that he would be talking to other family members who would tell him if she was lying. John Mulhall then left the room to take a call on his mobile from his daughter Marie. While he was gone, Linda still said nothing.

  After about twenty minutes of silence the guards decided to leave her for the moment. As John Mulhall walked them to their car, he asked them if Linda had told them where the head was buried. They shook their heads but Mulhall said, ‘She knows where it is.’ He promised to get his daughter Marie to make a full statement the following Saturday telling them what she knew, because Linda had spoken to her about the murder over the previous five months.

  Less than three hours after the two detectives left Kilclare Gardens DI Mangan was on patrol in Coolock when his mobile phone rang. It was Linda Mulhall and she was in tears and sobbing. She said, ‘Christopher, Christopher I need to talk to you. Will you come back at five o’clock to talk?’

  DI Mangan asked her did she want to discuss the murder and when she told him she did, he arranged to see her at 4.45 p.m.

  Linda Mulhall was waiting for DI Mangan and Sgt Hickey in her bedroom, which w
as in a specially built shed in the back garden of the Tallaght house. She was sitting at the top of her bed with John Mulhall and said she ‘wanted to tell the truth of what happened with Farah’. She asked if her dad would leave the room because she wanted to be by herself when she confessed.

  Over the next hour and a quarter, a tearful Linda told the two officers exactly what had happened on that fateful night of 20 March. She started from when her mother had rung the sisters and arranged to meet her and Charlotte on O’Connell Street and finished with a detailed description of how she had murdered Noor. She took a number of breaks to go to the toilet in the main house and spoke to her daughters while she was gone.

  When she came back at 6.15 p.m. she agreed to make a full written statement but didn’t want to go to Tallaght Station to record her confession. She was officially cautioned and read her rights and over the next ninety minutes Sergeant Liam Hickey wrote down Linda’s words as she emotionally described how the murder had ruined her life and made her a nervous wreck. She signed her statement at 8 p.m.

  When Linda finished her official statement she agreed to show gardaí the spot where Farah Swaleh Noor’s head was buried. She hugged her father as she got into the patrol car with DI Mangan and Sgt Hickey. She directed them past the Jobstown Inn and left up a small road, past a golf course to Killinarden Hill. Linda told Sgt Hickey to stop the car as they drove past an innocuous field on the left-hand side of the road. The entrance into the field was covered with rubbish bags and was protected by thick barbed wire. DI Mangan held down the barbed wire with his foot while Linda crouched under it and entered the field, which was littered with rubbish and burnt-out cars. They walked about 300 feet to the right of the field, past a burnt-out car and towards a ditch. Linda walked into the entrance and got down the bank into the ditch. A black pipe lay covered in muck and grass and the thirty-year-old said she recognised it from when she was there the last time. The pipe was lying on the bed of a small stream.