Mother of murdered man refused to give him €600 over drug fears

THE MOTHER of a man beaten to death yesterday told how she refused to give him €600 on the night he disappeared as she feared he might use the money to buy drugs.

Geraldine McManus said her son John had suffered a serious head injury in a traffic incident when he was 13 and later developed a problem with drugs which led to him assaulting her and having to live away from the family home in Fermoy, Co Cork.

Ms McManus said she used to ring her son every day and that she had never seen him happier than when he moved into a new flat on Wellington Road in Cork city in October 2008.

Her son had received €600,000 in damages for the road incident, but Ms McManus and her family had him made a ward of court as they felt he couldn’t manage such a large amount of cash and instead he received payments every Tuesday and Friday.

Ms McManus told the court how her son rang her on Thursday, October 30th, at around 6.30pm and asked for €600 as he had broken a computer belonging to a friend.

However, she refused to give him the money as she feared he would buy drugs.

She later received an abusive text from her son and that was the last communication she had with him, she told the trial of two people accused of murdering him.

John Walsh (45), from Cork St, Mitchelstown, and Gillian Purcell (34), with an address at the Simon Shelter, Anderson’s Quay, Cork, both deny murdering Mr McManus. Both are accused of murdering him at Wellington Road on a date between October 28th and November 7th, 2008.

Their trial is taking place before a jury of six men and six women at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Cork.

Ms McManus yesterday told how she received a call on October 31st, 2008, from her son’s landlord to say he had received a complaint from other tenants in the house about the noise coming from her’s son flat in the early hours of that morning.

“I rang John and I couldn’t get through, which was most unusual,” said Ms McManus, adding that her son usually rang her back when she left a message and that they usually spoke at least once a day. Ms McManus became concerned and contacted gardaí in Fermoy.

The trial continues.