Sandra fell into sea, court hears

DIFFICULT TIMES ?The family of Sandra Collins, pictured arriving at Castlebar Courthouse for the murder trial of Martin Earley, heard more harrowing evidence last week.?Pic: Keith Heneghan/Phocus

Week three of murder trial hears Sandra fell into sea


Anton McNulty

Sandra Collins fell into the water off Killala pier when arguing with Martin Earley, a witness told the murder trial in the Central Criminal Court in Castlebar. The court sat from Tuesday to Friday last week, the third week of the trial.
Martin Earley of Bannagher, Carrmore-Lacken, Ballina, is accused of the murder of Sandra Collins, who went missing on December 4, 2000. She was last seen in a takeaway in Killala. Mr Earley denies the charge.
The sitting of the court before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy heard evidence given by Michael Granahan who revealed that Mr Earley told him of the events of December 4, 2000, after he allowed him to stay in his home in March 2011.
He said that Mr Earley told him that he had met Ms Collins in Killala on the night she went missing and that they had argued before she fell into the water.
“He mentioned about the night in question that the lady disappeared. He met the lady and had gone to the pier in Killala, [he said] something about an argument [and that] the lady fell into the water.”
When asked how she fell into the water, he was told she fell out of the car and was very erratic and stepped backwards into the sea. He said he asked Mr Earley why he did not jump into the water to get her out, and the reply was that he could not swim.

‘In big trouble’
Mr Granahan is a native of Birmingham. His father came from Ballycastle, and in 2011, he lived in his father’s homeplace with his sick uncle. A self-employed civil engineer, he was introduced to Mr Earley in 2007 and did ‘bits and pieces’ with him for work.
On March 23, 2011, he said Mr Earley phoned him and ‘sounded like he was on the beer’ and  saying he was ‘in trouble’. He said he met him outside the church in Ballycastle and brought him to his uncle’s home.
Mr Granahan told the court Mr Earley was ‘very stressed’ and vomited in his home, and that he told Mr Earley to go to bed.
He said that the following morning Mr Earley was sober but stressed, and that he started talking about the Gardaí wanting to see him and problems in his marriage.
“He said he was in trouble…. It was to do with the lady going missing. He said he was in big trouble,” Mr Granahan told the court. “He was really sick, he mentioned some stupidness about topping himself off.”
Mr Granahan said he gave Mr Earley a bottle of beer ‘to calm the nerves’ and told him to contact a solicitor and to go to the Gardaí.
Under cross examination from Mr MicheΡl O’Higgins, SC for the accused, Mr Granahan said he did not think Mr Earley was a violent man and that he believed he had told him the truth.

‘I’m a murderer’
The court also heard from a former workmate, Michael Armstrong, who claimed that Mr Earley once told him he was a murderer and if the family would be happy with a piece of bone.
Mr Armstrong said he was working on a site in Ballina in 2004 when, on one occasion, gardaí had visited the site investigating and burglary in a house next door. He said Mr Earley looked worried when the gardaí were there. He said that after the gardaí left, they were talking, and  Mr Earley said, ‘I’m a murderer’. Mr Armstrong said this was odd, and that when he and the other workers looked at each other, he said Mr Earley replied that he was ‘only codding’.
He mentioned another time when an article on Ms Collins appeared in the local paper, Mr Earley suddenly stopped the van he was driving when he saw the paper and ‘read every bit of the article out loud’.
Mr Armstrong said that on another occasion, he mentioned on the site that he was watching a TV programme about forensic detectives. He said Mr Earley approached him about the programme and asked if they could identify the sex of someone if they came on a body.
The following day, he claimed Mr Earley asked whether the family would be satisfied if they had a piece of the body. Mr Armstrong said he ‘hopped back’ when Mr Earley said this and told him that if he had anything to do with the girl he should give it up.
Mr Armstrong said that he approached Garda Des McCann in 2008 and told him what he learned, but that he did not hear back from him. In 2010, he approached another garda and explained everything to him and made a written statement in 2011.
Mr Armstrong admitted he failed to mention the incident regarding Mr Earley referring to the body in his statement and only told gardaí two days before giving evidence.
When under cross-examination from Mr Desmond Dockery, BL for the accused, Mr Armstrong denied that he did not mention it because it did not happen. When it was put to him that he was sacked by Mr Earley because of the quality of his work, Mr Armstrong replied, “That’s total lies, that never happened.”
Mr Dockery also claimed that his client was not serious when he said he was a murderer and that he was only cracking a joke.

Letter
A former neighbor of Martin Earley claimed in court that he dictated to her an anonymous letter to the Gardaí implicating another man in the disappearance of the Killala woman.
The claim was made by Denise Mahedy, who was a former neighbour of Martin Earley. She  claimed he called to her flat in Ballina and dictated a letter to be addressed to the Gardaí following a fresh appeal for information on Sandra Collins’s disappearance in 2010.
The court sitting in Castlebar heard that Mr Earley arrived in the flat wearing a pair of pink household gloves, a notepad and envelope, as well as a copy of a newspaper that carried the headline, ‘Net closes in on suspect in missing woman case’.
Ms Mahedy, who grew up as a neighbour of Mr Earley before moving into Ballina, told the court that she agreed to write the letter. The letter, which was read to the court by Mr Denis Vaughan-Buckley, SC for the State, and addressed to the Gardaí, began by stating that ‘we knew Sandra well’ and hoped ‘the Collins family forgive us for not coming forward at the time’.
The letter stated that Ms Collins ‘told us’ she was expecting a baby before her disappearance, and that when asked who the father was, she stated it was Martin Irwin or Paddy McDonnell and that she had had a baby with Mr Irwin before.
The letter stated that on December 4, 2000, they were going to the takeaway in Killala and talked to a person called ‘Tom’ but did not want to give his last name. It stated that they had seen Sandra leave the takeaway, get into a car driven by a man and travel towards the pier.
The letter stated that the ‘writers’ were afraid to say anything at the time, but they were more grown-up now and had kids of their own.
Ms Mahedy told the court that on July 17, 2011, Mr Earley approached her in Ballina and asked her to go to a local solicitor and change a statement for him. She claimed Mr Earley  told her to ring him from a phonebox when that was done.
“I told him if he was innocent, he would not get me to write a letter for him,” Ms Mahedy told the court.
She said she went to the Gardaí the following day and told them what happened.
Mr MicheΡl O’Higgins, SC for the accused said his client, Mr Earley, denied dictating the letter and described what she said as a ‘tissue of lies’. He claimed that she wrote the letter because there was tension between Mr Earley and her former boyfriend, Paul McGuire, because Mr Earley had allegedly been responsible for him being sacked from a job.
When this was put to Ms Mahedy, she initially denied that she knew there was any ‘tension’ between the two men, but later accepted that she knew about the sacking.
“All I know is Martin Earley got Paul McGuire sacked off a job, and that’s all I know,” she said.
Mr O’Higgins also claimed that Ms Mahedy had, in the Lidl supermarket in Ballina, said to another work colleague of Mr Earley’s: ‘I’ll f**k you up like myself and Paul McGuire fucked up Martin Earley’. She denied this happened.
When Mr O’Higgins asked her if Mr McGuire put her up to write the anonymous letter, she replied, ‘No, he didn’t’.
The court also heard that Ms Mahedy was arrested by gardaí in March 2011 and conceded that she had received immunity from the DPP in relation to the writing of the letter.
Mr O’Higgins said his client did visit Ms Mahedy’s flat on the day but claimed he was looking for her former boyfriend, Michael Doherty, who he worked with. Ms Mahedy denied this was the case.
A FORMER employee of Martin Earley claimed he asked him to say he left the Golden Acres pub to go to the chipper when he left with Sandra Collins.
Martin Maloney told the court he made three statements to gardaí in 2001 and stated that Martin Earley left the pub to go to the chipper. He claimed that Martin Earley asked him to tell gardaí that he left the pub to go to the chipper before he made the statements.
“I never told gardaí that Martin Earley was with Sandra Collins in any statement. At the time, me and Martin Earley were good friends and he asked me not to say anything. I said I wouldn’t,” he told the court.
Mr Maloney said there was interaction between the accused and Ms Collins in the pub, and he said Mr Earley told him he met her outside the pub.
The court heard that Mr Maloney had a falling out in late 2001 over money owned to him by Mr Earley and that they have not spoken to each other since. Mr Maloney said that in 2010, the gardaí approached him and asked if he wanted to add anything to his statement, and he said he did.
Mr Dockery said Mr Maloney had a grudge against his client over money owed and suggested to him that the jury should take his evidence with caution because of the issues between them. “We certainly don’t get on if that’s what you mean,” Mr Maloney replied.