‘People are reluctant to say anything’

SERIAL rapist Robert Howard grew up in the heart of the country, living in a tiny roadside cottage just a hundred yards up a hill from the village of The Swan.

There was no answer at his family home yesterday, though every window was open in the old, roadside bungalow nestled in trees. A Golden Labrador with a chain attached to its collar barked in a pen fenced with chicken wire and there were ducks in another patch nearby.

It was in the small, white-painted cottage about five miles from Ballylinan and 20 miles from Portlaoise that Howard grew up. His sister, Teresa Wilkie, a widow with no children, now lives there.