Palpable silence as family recall their memories

IT’S said that a parent should never have to bury a child.

In the past 11 months, Majella and Mark Holohan, parents of Robert Holohan, have shouldered that pain and yesterday the past year’s nightmare took another difficult turn as they were forced to give evidence in their son’s murder trial.

Ms Holohan took the stand before lunch and was barely audible as she first identified herself. Answering questions from the prosecution, she painted an everyday domestic picture of how she was at her home with her children on the day that Robert disappeared. Robert’s younger brother and sister, Harry and Emma, were colouring and playing a jigsaw while Robert played outside with his Christmas present, his BMX bike. Their grandfather called over for some scones. The family chatted and their grandfather went home for his lunch.

The last she saw of Robert was when he cycled out of the driveway, turning down to the right at around 2.30pm. She told the jury that at about 3.30 or 3.45pm she started to ring him but the phone rang out. The phone kept ringing out and she left a message.

“I remember saying: ‘Robert, it’s Mam, give me a buzz’. I had rung him five or six times before I started to panic because normally he’d ring me to ask what was for dinner or to put some pasta on,” she told the jury.

Ms Holohan kept her composure through most of the time in the stand but at times when speaking of Robert and then of her interaction with Wayne O’Donoghue it all became too much and she became momentarily emotional.

She told the court how as the evening progressed and there was still no sign of Robert, she telephoned the accused, Wayne O’Donoghue and said he told her he “hadn’t seen him since 2.30pm that afternoon”.

The jury was told how Wayne, his father and brothers called to the Holohan house and offered to help the search for Robert.

Shane Murphy, Senior Counsel for the prosecution asked Ms Holohan if O’Donoghue had said “don’t worry. We’ll find him all right, I’ll ring him on my mobile, he’ll answer for me”. Ms Holohan said: “He rang his mobile and put it up to his ear. He stood next to me.”

Ms Holohan told the jury she was astonished when she was informed that Wayne O’Donoghue had admitted killing her son.

“Robert adored Wayne. He looked up to him like a brother. We never had any problems with the O’Donoghues,” she said.

There was a palpable silence in court as the mother recounted Robert’s idyllic early life: his love of GAA, his bike, rollerblading, horses and being outdoors.

After lunch it was Robert’s father who took to the stand, hands clasped and looking straight ahead as if deeply focussed on the task ahead.

For a fleeting second, now and then, his gaze would wander to where the accused sat with his head down.

He outlined to the jury his version of what happened on the night Robert disappeared and how when days later the gardaí told him that Wayne O’Donoghue had been arrested, he “couldn’t believe it”.

It was when questioned about disciplining his son Robert that Mr Holohan looked pained.

“It’s something maybe I regret,” adding later, “I often blame myself for slapping him.”

The last family member to take the stand yesterday was Majella Holohan’s father, Wiliam Murray. An elderly man, he couldn’t help but break into warm smiles as he remembered different aspects of his grandson such as his winning a GAA medal the night before he disappeared.

The jury was told of his “happy-go-lucky” nature, how he was “always talking non-stop” and how he took an interest in his grandfather’s greyhounds. The two had “a particularly good relationship”.

You were “mad about him”? counsel for the defence asked the elderly man. “Yes,” he said.