‘If I told her I was sick ... she might be alive now’

CELINE CONROY’s mother feels she might have saved her daughter’s life if she told her she had cancer.

The 26-year-old Dubliner was found lying in a pool of blood by police on August 28 at the holiday home in Alicante she shared with her long-term partner Paul Hickey.

She had been beaten to death in front of her three children Shane, eight, Chloe, six, and Leah, one, who are now staying with relatives. Mr Hickey is being held in Spain pending further investigation into her death.

Her mother, Sandra Conroy Fitzsimons, believes Celine would have cut short her Spanish holiday to be with her had she known of her illness.

Now, Sandra is refusing treatment, to show the authorities how desperate she is to have her daughter's body returned home.

"I don't know what else to do. I am just hoping that someone with a heart out there will hear my plea," she said yesterday.

Sandra believes she is partly to blame for her daughter's death.

"If I told her I was sick with cancer she might be alive now. But I did not tell her because I knew she was coming home the next week. Now, I don't know when she is coming home so that I can bury her and her children can put flowers on her grave."

Authorities in Spain have told Celine's father, David, that the family could face a two-year wait to bring her body home.

The magistrate may order her to be buried in Spain until the case against Mr Hickey, 28, is over.

Labour's Justice spokesman, Joe Costello, said the family had asked him to speak with the Spanish authorities in a bid to find out when Celine's body might be released.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has told him they are putting pressure on the Spanish authorities to release the remains as soon as possible.

He understood, however, that the investigating judge in Spain was anxious to hold onto Celine's remains for as long as possible.

Mr Costello said Celine's mother had been diagnosed with a very severe form of cancer which needed to be treated immediately.

He said he understood Sandra's reluctance to begin treatment until after her daughter was buried at home, as she was likely to be hospitalised while receiving chemotherapy.

"What does she do? Hang on in the hope the remains will be released and bury her daughter or does she go ahead and get the treatment and the stress of all of that. It's a very difficult situation," he said.

Sandra said she had been living in limbo since her daughter's death.

"I just had to speak out because it is over two weeks since Celine was killed and I just feel everyone has forgotten us."

Doctors have told Sandra that she has a large tumour in her cervix. They fear it may spread to other parts of her body if not treated quickly.

"They have prioritised my case and have said that treatment could start next week but I don't want it now. I want to wait for my child. I need her to come home first," she said.

"I know I have to get the treatment so that I can be strong for Celine's children. But I don't want to be half way through it and be too ill to travel to Spain."

Sandra, 43, had been due to have her womb removed in the Rotunda Hospital last month, but the operation was stopped when the tumour was detected.

"My family were all around me when I woke up so I knew it must be something serious and I realised then that it was cancer that the doctors had been talking about.

"Two days later, when I was still in hospital, I found out that Celine had been killed.

"They let me out for a few hours on Sunday night to be with my family but when I came out on Monday all my family had gone to Spain. I had to stay in my auntie's house because people from the newspapers were outside my own home and wait for the children."

Sandra said Celine's two older children, Shane and Chloe, who celebrated her sixth birthday last weekend, had started school.

"We are trying to keep things as normal as possible and they are doing fine. Leah, the baby, who will be two on September 24 next, is too young to understand what happened."

The children will start receiving specialist counselling later this week.

Sandra, who described herself as a strong-willed woman, said she was now prepared to do "whatever it takes" to get the authorities to send her daughter's body home.

"I just need someone who can push buttons and tell me when Celine is coming home. I am just walking up and down my flat not knowing where to go or what to do," she said.

She also misses her daughter with whom she was very close. "We lived in the same block of flats and I would see her every day. She came in for her lunch after collecting the children from school. I would often make a pot of stew for her to take back with her for dinner."

And all that time, despite being so close, Sandra had no idea that her daughter's life with her partner was hellish.

"If her life with him was horrible, she hid it very well. She never had a black eye or visible bruising that would make me think she was having a hard time. That's what I can't understand, because I would have done something about it."