THE MAN whose partner Sharon Collins is accused of hiring a hitman to kill him and his two sons told a jury in the Central Criminal Court he decided not to get married a second time after his solicitor told him prenuptial agreements had no legal standing in Ireland.
PJ Howard agreed with prosecuting counsel Tom O'Connell SC that he was a wealthy man. He said he had been advised that any form of marriage would affect his assets.
Sharon Collins (45), Ballybeg House, Kildysart Road, Ennis, Co Clare, and Essam Eid (52), an Egyptian man with a Las Vegas address, have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to kill PJ Howard as well as Robert and Niall Howard between August 1st, 2006, and September 26th, 2006. Ms Collins also denies hiring Mr Eid to shoot the three men.
Mr Eid denies demanding €100,000 from Robert Howard to cancel the contracts.
Mr Howard said that in 2005 he and Ms Collins signed a document drawn up by Ms Collins which stated they were not and would never get married. "We signed an agreement between the two of us". This document was then handed to the solicitor.
Soon afterwards the couple went on holiday to Sorrento in Italy. "We agreed we would go to a church, the two of us, and we would just say a few prayers and we would leave again without any marriage." He said he did not object to Sharon telling any of her friends that there had been a marriage. The couple held a wedding reception party in Spanish Point in Clare months later and Mr Howard agreed that the invitations added to the impression that it was a wedding reception.
He said that he had met Ms Collins in 1998 after his partner, Bernie Lyons, had died from cancer. Just before Christmas 1998, Ms Collins and her two sons came to live with him. After his wife, from whom he was legally separated, died in 2003 he and Ms Collins discussed marriage.
He agreed that he had suffered from ill health and Ms Collins had looked after him while he was sick. Mr Howard told Mr O'Connell that Ms Collins was good at computers and her skills were self-taught. He said the only computer he had seen her using in the house was a Compaq computer and he had never seen her using the Iridium laptop computer gardaí seized after Ms Collins's arrest.
He said as well as the house in Ennis, for which he did not have a mortgage, he also owned an apartment in Fuengirola in Spain, also mortgage-free. He spent half the year in Spain and Ms Collins would have been with him half to three-quarters of that time. He agreed that she had frequently used local internet cafes.
He said Ms Collins first told him about a woman called Maria Marconi after his son Robert rang him in Spain to tell him the family business had been broken into and a man had told him there was a contract out on his life and those of his brother Niall and PJ himself.