The girlfriend of Kenyan murder victim Farah Swaleh Noor cleaned up the crime scene to protect her two daughters, who had killed him, the Central Criminal Court heard today.
The court also heard that she offered her daughters to take the blame for her boyfriend’s death.
Kathleen Mulhall (53), St Mary’s Park, Carlow, pleaded guilty in February to helping to clean up the crime scene in order to conceal evidence and prevent the apprehension of her daughters, knowing that Mr Noor had been murdered at Richmond Cottages, Ballybough, on March 21st, 2005.
Mulhall will be sentenced on Friday morning by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court, sitting at Cloverhill.
In December 2006 her daughters, Charlotte (25) and Linda (32) were convicted, respectively, of Mr Noor’s murder and manslaughter.
Today Garda Sheelagh Sheehan told the court that their mother was in a relationship with Mr Noor, whose dismembered body was found in the Royal Canal, Dublin, in March 2005.
His head and penis were cut off and he had suffered multiple stab wounds to the trunk. His body was identified using DNA evidence.
During the investigation into Mr Noor’s death, Mulhall was interviewed six times by gardai.
She said that she had last seen Mr Noor since March 2005.
Mulhall told Mr Noor’s employers that he had gone to Kilkenny.
On August 3rd 2005, Mulhall told gardai that she knew nothing about Mr Noor’s death and that she had only heard about his death the previous day.
She was interviewed once again over a month later. On this occasion she told gardai that she had been drinking with Mr Noor and her two daughters on the Liffey boardwalk in Dublin on the day of the killing.
All four ended up in Mulhall’s flat at Ballybough.
There was a disagreement between Mr Noor and Mulhall’s daughters, who went into a bedroom. Mulhall did not go in.
She told gardai that she heard “roaring and shouting” and that Linda came out of the room, covered in blood and told her that Mr Noor was dead.
She went into the bedroom and saw that Mr Noor was not breathing.
“I was dragged out. They slammed the door shut. I did not get back in.”
She said that she did not see Mr Noor being killed.
Mulhall also told gardai that she and her daughters cleaned up the room the next day.
When asked why she did not report the killing, she told gardai: “Why do you think, because of my children.”
She said that, at one stage, she told her daughters she would go to the police and tell them she killed Farah.
Mulhall was released from garda custody in September 2005.
Gardai were not able to locate her again until January 2008. She was living in England.
In the meantime, in December 2006, Charlotte and Linda were convicted, respectively, of Mr Noor’s murder and manslaughter.
Gardai travelled to London in February 2008 and met with Mulhall. She said she wanted to return to Ireland.
When she returned she went to Mountjoy Garda Station and was interviewed.
She said that she did not tell the gardai what had happened in order to “protect her daughters”.
Mulhall has no previous convictions.
The court heard that she had been in a relationship with Mr Noor since 2002,
that the relationship was “abusive” and Mulhall had “suffered a lot”.
Mulhall’s counsel Hugh Hartnett SC told the court that Mr Noor was “very violent and abusive because of drink and drugs”.
Mulhall is the mother of six children, three daughters and three sons.
Mr Hartnett told the court that throughout her life she had a “horrific background”.
“She was abused as a child by both her father and mother.
“Despite this, she never got into trouble.
“She married at a very young age and fell into significant bad luck. She was abused in a violent way by her husband, John Mulhall.”
Mr Mulhall committed suicide in December 2005.
Mr Hartnett said: “Over 53 years, when being abused, she didn’t get into trouble. She did her level best to keep her family together and was devoted to that despite the horrific background she lived in.”
Mulhall will be sentenced this Friday.