TWO LIMERICK men threatened to kill a mother and her three children after a dispute over visiting rights for the children of their jailed brother, their Special Criminal Court trial will hear.
Wayne Dundon (33), of Lenihan Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, has pleaded not guilty to five counts relating to threatening to kill Alice Collins, her two sons Gareth and Jimmy and her daughter April, as well as two counts of obstructing the course of justice at addresses in Limerick city.
His brother John Dundon (29), with an address at Hyde Road, has pleaded not guilty to threatening to kill April Collins and making a threat to April to kill her mother, Alice Collins, at an address on Hyde Road on the weekend of April 3rd and 4th, 2011.
Opening the prosecution case, Tom O’Connell SC said the non-jury court would hear that complainant April Collins had been in a relationship with Gerard Dundon, a brother of the accused men, from when she was 16, and had three children by him.
He said the acrimony began when April took the decision to end her relationship with him and stop bringing the children to visit him in prison, where he was in custody on charges relating to the extortion and intimidation of nightclub owner Mark Heffernan.
Mr O’Connell said the catalyst for the alleged threats to kill was a fight between April’s brother Gareth Collins and Nathan Killeen in Limerick prison on September 30th, 2010. He said Killeen’s sister, who is married to John Dundon, and three other women went to the home of Alice Collins at Hyde Avenue and attacked her car with “various implements”.
Mr O’Connell said the court would hear that later that night Wayne Dundon, finding the door of the house at Hyde Avenue open, walked into Alice Collins’s sitting room, threatened to kill her son Gareth and told her: “Our job will be to give some fool €10,000 to kill your Jimmy, how about that?” He said there would be evidence that when a “petrified” Alice Collins asked why he was picking on her son Jimmy, he replied: “It’s the quiet fella who gets it.”
Mr O’Connell said the court would hear that six months later, an “extremely angry” Wayne Dundon walked into the house on Hyde Road where April Collins had been living and demanded to know why she was not letting her children visit Ger Dundon. He said Wayne Dundon told April that if anything happened to his brother over her, he would kill her.
The trial continues.