Book Read Free

The Irish Scissor Sisters

Page 29

by Mick McCaffrey


  Another Hazel House resident was mum-of-four, Lisa Moran, who brought her children on shoplifting sprees. A judge told her that her kids would be ‘better off without her’ while she served a two-year sentence. The thirty-seven-year-old frequently attacked and threatened shop workers during her trips. Originally from Cork, Moran has pleaded guilty to over one hundred offences in just four years. Gardaí have told court hearings that she has hidden behind her children, aged from seven to thirteen, to avoid jail. She had also used them to commit the shoplifting offences and they had witnessed her violent reaction when challenged by shop staff. She has been convicted of driving without insurance on over twenty occasions and is banned from the road for twenty-five years. She’s also been found guilty of assaulting gardaí, security staff and other members of the public, theft from more than twenty shops, using forged or stolen cheques, and theft of handbags, mobile phones and wallets.

  Another long-term resident of Hazel House is drugs mule Breda Maguire, a thirty-three-year-old single mother-of-two, who was born in Ireland but had lived most of her life in London. She is serving a six-year term after being arrested in May 2001 transporting €500,000 worth of heroin into Dublin Port. She fled the country when she was given bail but was later extradited back to Ireland and sent to the Dóchas Centre.

  One woman who was said to be very unhappy at the Scissor Sisters’ emergence as the big fish in the Dóchas Centre pond was the so-called ‘Black Widow’, Catherine Nevin. Nevin was convicted in April 2000 of the murder of her husband, Tom, a well-known publican. He was gunned down in Jack White’s Pub in March 1996 and his former wife is serving a life sentence. She was also convicted on three counts of soliciting three different men to murder Tom Nevin in 1989 and 1990 and was sentenced to three seven-year sentences on those charges. Nevin had claimed that she was in the pub counting the takings with her husband when armed and masked raiders burst in, tied her up and shot Tom dead at point blank range. Gardaí had doubts about her story and she was convicted after one of the most sensational trials in Irish legal history. The public was fascinated with Nevin and her glamorous appearance and fashionable outfits were the talk of Ireland during her forty-two-day trial. Catherine Nevin is known to revel in her title as the most notorious prisoner in the women’s prison. Reports have suggested that she didn’t take kindly to the arrival of Linda and Charlotte Mulhall, who arguably commanded more column inches than she did during her murder trial. Nevin ignores the Mulhalls and tells her friends that their crime was too despicable for her to get involved with them. They bump into each other on an almost daily basis but the Black Widow is said to act as if the sisters don’t exist, which many staff and prisoners have put down to jealousy on Nevin’s part.

  On Monday, 4 December 2006 the Mulhall sisters woke up early and chatted with their fellow prisoners, as they enjoyed a breakfast of eggs, cereal, tea and toast. As they went back to their rooms to get dressed, many of the other women wouldn’t even have known that the pair were facing sentencing that day, such were their blasé exteriors.

  It was a morning of mixed emotions for the sisters. Charlotte had already had over six weeks to come to terms with the fact that she would spend the rest of her life behind bars. As she dressed in black trousers, with a pinstripe jacket, and applied heavy make-up to her face, she must have been thinking about ending up in prison just six months after becoming a mother for the first time. Her child had been taken into care following her conviction and she would soon apply to look after her son behind bars. This would help to make sure that the long days would be just that little bit shorter, but nevertheless it was not easy to act normal, as she put her silver earrings on and tied the hair-band in her dyed black hair. Staff said she was not as friendly as usual, as she sat nervously awaiting the prison van which would transport her to the Four Courts building in the centre of Dublin, a mere five-minute drive away.

  Linda chose to wear a pair of plain black trousers, with a white tightly-fitted shirt, under a black leather jacket. She wore even more make-up than her younger sister and, had circumstances been different, she could easily have been preparing for a night out to celebrate Christmas, which was just weeks away. The mother-of-four had far more reason to be hopeful than Charlotte. She had only been convicted of manslaughter by the jury, which meant that her sentence was at the discretion of Judge Carney. Convictions for manslaughter in the Irish judicial system rarely result in more than an eight-year prison term and the jury had seemed to have had genuine sympathy for a woman who had acted in self-defence to ward off the unwelcome advances of a drunken, violent man.

  Four Prison officers met the Mulhalls and placed them in the back of a van at around 10 a.m. They arrived at the Four Courts less than ten minutes later and around eight press photographers were there to greet them as they walked into the court building. The weather was cold and windy and parts of the country were under water from recent sustained heavy rain. Linda pulled the collar of her jacket up to get some extra warmth, as she heard the clicking of the snappers’ cameras. As it turned out, the dark clouds in the sky were an omen of what was to come.

  The national media had been eagerly awaiting this day and news desks around the country were anticipating big sales with the ‘Scissor Sisters’ splashed all over the front pages. Court Number 2 was packed to capacity by 10 a.m., nearly a full hour before Mr Justice Carney was due to sit. Dozens of newspaper, radio and television journalists struggled to fit into the tiny courtroom. Anyone who wasn’t in attendance by 10.15 a.m. had to make do with standing room only at the back of the room, which was not where the many colour writers, sent to court to file copy on the girls’ demeanour and reactions, wanted to be.

  Some observers could hardly get their heads around the doors when Judge Carney was finally announced to the court by his registrar. A female prison officer stood guard at the door to the side of the court, from where prisoners and barristers enter from the cells below. Two large gardaí, from the Bridewell Station, stood outside the courtroom, observing everybody who went in and making occasional sweeps to ensure that no jackets or bags were left unattended. It wasn’t just the Mulhall sisters, however, who had drawn the press to Court 2 that day. Padraig Nally, a sixty-two-year-old farmer from Co. Mayo, was due to face a retrial for the murder of the traveller John ‘Frog’ Ward that same day.

  On 14 October 2004 the traveller had trespassed on Nally’s property, with the alleged intention of stealing from him. The farmer had confronted Ward with a shotgun, opened fire and badly beaten him with a stick. He had then reloaded and shot Ward in the back as he limped away. The original trial, which had taken place in Castlebar, Co.Mayo, in July 2005, had divided the nation. Many people felt that Padraig Nally was more than entitled to defend his property against a well-known criminal, with a string of previous convictions, while others disagreed. At the end of the seven-day trial, Nally had been found not guilty of murder and instead was convicted of manslaughter. On 11 November 2005 he was sentenced to six years in prison. Nally’s lawyers, however, subsequently argued in the Court of Criminal Appeal that the trial judge, who just happened to be Paul Carney, hadn’t allowed the jury the option of finding the farmer not guilty. The previous conviction had been overturned on 12 October 2006.

  Padraig Nally’s case was the first of the morning to be called and the nervous looking bachelor pleaded not guilty. He then had to prepare himself for yet another two weeks in court as the twelve men and women of the jury were sworn in. Judge Carney told the jurors that this case had ‘engendered a great deal of publicity, perhaps more than any other in the history of this court. It has also engendered extremely strong feelings.’ He told the panel that they must hear the case ‘strictly on evidence and without discrimination to members of the farming or travelling communities’.

  With the Nally case moved to a full hearing in Court Number 3, Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Mulhall case informed the judge that the prosecution would be seeking to have the Mulhall sentencin
g adjourned. This was because they had been unable to arrange for Farah Swaleh Noor’s mother to fly to Dublin from Kenya to give a victim impact statement to the court. He also said that a psychiatric report on Linda Mulhall was unavailable.

  Judge Carney was clearly displeased and said he wasn’t going to deal with any application until the case had been called, but warned that the State had had enough time to arrange for anybody who was needed in court to be there. He stressed that he wanted to see the case finished with that day: ‘The matter is in for today and is proceeding today.’

  The unexpected application by the prosecution caused panic among the journalists who were faced with the potential of seeing a two-month delay in sentencing. A number of other cases were then called before the Mulhalls were led into the courtroom by two prison guards at 12.25 p.m. The women sat at benches beside the dock, preparing themselves for the next few minutes when the judge would sentence them for their heinous crime. But there was a another delay. Brendan Grehan, Linda’s senior counsel, was not in court when the case was called because he was also representing Padraig Nally. His junior was not present either, which led a furious Judge Carney to remark: ‘He has been provided by the taxpayer to cover Mr Grehan in his absences. Well we will just have to wait until one of them appears.’

  After ten long and tense minutes, the clearly unimpressed Judge adjourned the case for twenty-five minutes until Mr Grehan had finished his official business in the adjoining courtroom. During the delay Linda chatted with a man who came to see her from the public gallery. They whispered in each other’s ears and laughed occasionally. She also had a lengthy talk with two of her defence team and seemed relaxed and in good spirits. Charlotte on the other hand, was far quieter and spoke just once to a prison guard, hugged her and smiled weakly. Otherwise she slouched in her seat, putting her left hand on her face and staring at the ground, while sometimes playing with a wristband on her right arm. She’d occasionally look up and stare around her, fidgeting with a yellow lighter and picking at her long nails. Neither of the defendants was handcuffed in the courtroom and just one prison officer watched over them.

  Ireland’s most respected, experienced – and feared – criminal judge returned to his courtroom at 12.45 p.m. on the button. He began by saying that the Farah Swaleh Noor murder was ‘the most grotesque case of killing’ that he had ever experienced in his professional lifetime. He said that this was only the third case in Irish legal history involving the mutilation of the victim in such a horrific manner. The others were the notorious case of South African medical student Shan Mohangi in 1963 and double killer Michael Bambrick, who murdered and mutilated two women after macabre sex sessions, and was sentenced to eighteen years for the double manslaughter in 1996.

  Sergeant Liam Hickey gave evidence for An Garda Síochána and told the court that Charlotte and Linda Mulhall had attacked and murdered Farah Swaleh Noor after the Kenyan made advances on Linda and called her a ‘creature of the night’. He detailed how the pair had mutilated the body and cut it into eight pieces before dumping it in the Royal Canal and disposing of the head and murder weapons at Sean Walsh Park, in Tallaght. Sgt Hickey accepted that the women had been co-operative with the gardaí once they had owned up to the killings and said that Linda had shown genuine remorse for what she had done.

  Linda’s counsel, Brendan Grehan, said that she had made a number of attempts to harm herself since the Noor murder and had cut her arms on two occasions. She had spent ten days in a psychiatric hospital just days before the trial started and was taking heroin and drinking up to three bottles of vodka a day. Mr Grehan said that she was a good mother and he pleaded for leniency.

  Mr Justice Carney did not agree, however, and immediately sentenced her to fifteen years’ imprisonment, to gasps of surprise from the courtroom. He said he had the option of jailing her for life but had to respect the decision of the jury to allow the defence of provocation. He would have sentenced her to eighteen years in jail but for the fact that she had helped point out various scenes to detectives and had assisted the investigation. He said he was not persuaded by arguments put forward by her defence counsel that she was a good mother to her four children, saying, ‘As far as you’ve urged on me that she is a good mother, I don’t regard this as particularly persuasive. If she was a good mother she would not have got herself into a situation of this kind.’ Judge Carney also pointed out that Linda had attempted to postpone or delay the opening of the trial by going cold turkey in an attempt to get off drink and drugs.

  Linda, who had previously stared impassively at the floor while the evidence was heard, sobbed into her hands as the realisation dawned that she would not see her children as a free woman for at least ten more years. Charlotte held Linda’s hand as her sister’s sentence was handed down.

  For the most part Charlotte Mulhall sat motionless during the hour-long hearing, choosing a spot on the wall and staring straight at it. Her cold demeanour and casual attitude had been a trademark of the trial and she was not about to change it now. She had known that she wouldn’t see the outside world as a free woman for many years and didn’t display any emotion when she was formally sentenced to life imprisonment. ‘As far as Charlotte is concerned the sentence is a mandatory one of imprisonment for life,’ said the judge.

  When Judge Carney left his court, the media ran outside to file early copy while the Scissor Sisters were led to the awaiting van and transported back to their home for the foreseeable future. Linda sobbed and clutched a packet of tissues. The tears running down her face left streaks in her heavy mascara. Charlotte said nothing. Her black eye-make-up remained exactly the same as it had been when she put it on five hours earlier.

  Outside the courtroom Detective Superintendent John McKeown said: ‘The Garda Síochána are pleased with the outcome and the sentences. I would like to extend my sympathies to the family of Mr Noor, his mother and his wife, and extend our thanks to members of the public who came forward to help us with our investigation.’

  In the days following sentencing Linda Mulhall was said by prison sources to be devastated at her fifteen-year term. A decision was made by the prison authorities to monitor her, to make sure she didn’t attempt suicide. She spent days lying on her bed sobbing and was heard to mutter ‘fifteen years, fifteen years’ repeatedly. Her jail friends became very worried for her mental health. Linda really did not expect fifteen years for a murder she truly believed she had carried out to protect herself. It was weeks before she accepted her fate and got on with prison life.

  Just two days after Judge Carney handed down what was generally agreed to be a harsh sentence, lawyers for Linda lodged an appeal against the severity of the sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal. The three-judge court would rule in 2007 and would have the option of decreasing the sentence, although they could also add to it, if they felt that fifteen years was too lenient.

  Linda gradually came to terms with her punishment and realised that there was nothing she could do to change it. She started studying behind bars and hoped to complete her Leaving Certificate for the first time, as she dropped out of school at a young age. She also began taking classes in woodwork and jewellery-making and learned how to make handbags and purses in the leatherwork classes. Charlotte also attended these classes and the two were rarely apart and tended to do the same activities. Prison sources said that Linda showed a good aptitude for the classes and was good with her hands. She was also said to be a ‘clean freak’, who spends hours making sure that her room is spotless. Linda had also expressed an interest in doing a FÁS course in beauty therapy and began the course in late 2007. She became friendlier towards her fellow prisoners and mixed more freely. There were even media reports that she had found God and was wearing rosary beads, reciting decades of the rosary each day. Whether this was true or not, the visits from her four children are said to get Linda through each week and she brags to the other women about how well her children are doing in school.

  While Linda was trying
to come to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t walk free until at least 2017, it was business as usual for Charlotte. Prison officers said there was no change in her demeanour. She still mixed freely with her fellow prisoners and seemed resigned to her fate. Charlotte’s behaviour while she was out on bail, however, was still keeping her solicitors in business. A few days after the sentencing, on 7 December, Charlotte was fined €100 in her absence at Dublin District Court for being drunk while caring for a child on the 77 bus, in Tallaght. Her legal representative, Michael Kelleher, pleaded guilty on her behalf to being drunk and a danger to herself on 10 September 2006. The court heard that a fellow passenger became alarmed when they saw Charlotte in a drunken state on the bus while she was minding a young child. The driver called the gardaí and Garda Robert Elliot from Tallaght Station said he arrived on the 77 to find her very drunk. ‘She had a small child with her and I believed she was intoxicated to such an extent to be a danger to herself,’ Garda Elliot told Judge Bryan Smyth. She was arrested for her own safety and taken to the garda station and released when she sobered up. Her solicitor said there was not much he could say about Charlotte’s case except that she was very drunk at the time.

 

‹ Prev