Mulhall jailed for impeding murder inquiry

THE MOTHER of the two Mulhall sisters who brutally killed a man and dismembered his body has been sentenced to five years in prison for impeding the investigation into the crime.

Kathleen Mulhall (53) helped clean up the crime scene at Richmond Cottages, Ballybough, Dublin, after her daughters killed Farah Swaleh Noor, with whom she had been having a relationship.

Noor's dismembered body was found in the Royal Canal, Dublin, in March 2005.

In December 2006 Mulhall's daughters, Charlotte (25), and Linda (32), were convicted, respectively, of Noor's murder and manslaughter.

During the investigation into Noor's death, the 53-year-old mother-of-six was interviewed six times by gardaí. She said she had last seen Noor in March 2005. She told Noor's employers that he had gone to Kilkenny.

Kathleen Mulhall, dressed in a brown pinstripe jacket and a pink shirt, showed no reaction yesterday as Mr Justice Paul Carney pronounced her sentence at the Central Criminal Court, close to Cloverhill Prison in Dublin West.

"It was the most grotesque case of killing that has occurred in my professional lifetime," the judge told a packed court.

He said the crime to which Mulhall pleaded guilty carried a 10-year prison term, and the Director of Public Prosecutions had recommended she receive a sentence at the top end of the scale.

Mulhall was fully aware of the grotesque nature of the crime when she rendered assistance, the judge said, and she also laid a trail to give the impression Noor was still alive.

But, Mr Justice Carney said, he took into account Mulhall's voluntary return from England, her lack of previous convictions and her desire to protect her daughters.

He also considered her "lifetime of being subjected to abuse and violence at the hands of her family and the men with whom she had relationships".

He said he was also taking into account the good use to which Kathleen Mulhall was putting her incarceration.

Balancing these factors, he said he would impose a sentence of five years to be backdated to February 2008. He dismissed leave to appeal.

Earlier in the week, the court was told Mulhall had been abused by her parents, but despite the abuse, she had never been in trouble with the law.

She got married at a "very very early age", according to her counsel, and endured abuse and violence at the hands of her husband John Mulhall.

She left her husband and began a relationship with Noor, who was also violent and abusive.