A CLARE woman has failed in her appeal against her conviction for soliciting a man to kill her partner and his two sons.
Sharon Collins (48), of Kildysart Road, Ennis, was jailed for six years in November 2008 after a Central Criminal Court jury found her guilty of soliciting a man to murder her partner PJ Howard and his two sons Robert and Niall Howard on August 15th, 2006.
Collins, who was accused of using the internet handle “lying-eyes98” to investigate the hiring of a hitman on the internet, was also found guilty on three counts of conspiring to kill the three men.
At her appeal hearing in March last year, Tom O’Connell SC, for the State, told the court it was not possible to “stand over” Collins’s convictions for conspiracy and leave to appeal against them was not being opposed as they were “logically unsustainable”.
The court was told it takes “at least two people to conspire” and a jury had been unable to reach a verdict on a charge of conspiracy against Collins’s co-accused, Essam Eid (55).
Former Las Vegas poker dealer Eid was jailed for demanding money with menaces and handling stolen property from the Howard family business. The Court of Criminal Appeal upheld his six-year sentence.
Upon completion of his sentence, Eid was extradited to the United States to face charges relating to conspiracy with his ex-partner to extort money from a woman and intent to extort money with a threat to kill in 2006.
In a written judgment returned yesterday, the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal said Collins would be refused leave to appeal on all 23 grounds raised in her submissions.
Counsel for the applicant, Brendan Grehan SC, had told the court the thrust of the appeal could be confined to four main points, among them that there was a failure of disclosure on behalf of the prosecution relating to the investigation of Eid for an alleged conspiracy in the US.
He said evidence concerning traces of the poison ricin found in Eid’s cell in Limerick prison should have not gone before the jury, and that the trial judge erred in law by ruling that evidence adduced in the cross-examination of witness John Keating was alibi evidence.
Mr Grehan said Mr Justice Roderick Murphy had failed to adequately charge the jury as to the import and consequences of the evidence offered by Mr Keating.
Mr Keating was originally called as a prosecution witness but was stood down and held by the trial judge to have given alibi evidence. He was then cross-examined by the prosecution and later called by the applicant as a defence witness.
Lawyers for Collins argued that, because the jury could not agree Eid had conspired with Sharon Collins to murder, they could not have been satisfied Eid was the person whom she solicited to kill the three men and therefore the guilty verdict returned on solicitation was unsafe and unsatisfactory.
It was also submitted that the judge had erred in principle by failing to charge the jury correctly in relation to this solicitation charge.
Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, presiding, said the court found all reasonable efforts had been made by the State to obtain the documents that were the subject of the appeal on the grounds of disclosure, and the trial judge was correct in ruling the ricin evidence could go before the jury.
He said the court found the evidence of Mr Keating was clearly alibi evidence and that, after requisition, the trial judge recharged the jury with sufficient clarity as to the course they should take should they find the alibi evidence could reasonably be true.
Mr Justice Finnegan said nothing objectionable could be found in Mr Justice Murphy’s charge, and the explanation of solicitation given to the jury was succinct and clear.
He said there was no inconsistency in the jury finding Eid not guilty of conspiracy and yet finding the applicant guilty of solicitation.