Dundon said I was digging my own grave, woman tells court

A woman was told she was digging her own grave and it was “very easy to make people disappear” by a Limerick man accused of threatening to kill her and three of her children, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

Alice Collins, aged 48, was testifying in the trial of Wayne Dundon, aged 33, of Lenihan Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, who has pleaded not guilty to five counts relating to threatening to kill Ms Collins and her children Gareth, Jimmy and April, as well as two counts of obstructing the course of justice at addresses in Limerick City between Sept 2010 and March 2011.

John Dundon, aged 29, with an address at Hyde Road, Limerick, has pleaded not guilty to threatening to kill April Collins and making a threat to April to kill her mother Alice Collins at Hyde Road on the weekend of April 3 and 4, 2011.

Ms Collins told counsel for the State, Tom O’Connell SC, that Wayne Dundon arrived outside her home on the evening of Sept 30, 2010, after four women, including John Dundon’s wife Ciara, had attacked her car and home.

She said she had called the gardaí during the attack but after they arrived she had to beckon them inside her home as she felt she could not answer any questions about what had happened in front of Wayne.

Ms Collins said that, as community garda Niamh Keogh walked in, she heard Wayne Dundon ask: “Why are the guards following her into her house?”

She said she swapped phone numbers with Garda Keogh, went to Roxborough Garda Station to make a statement, and then later that night returned to her home, where she washed the floors and left the front door open for them to dry.

Ms Collins said that after 8pm Wayne Dundon walked in to her sitting room in a “very agitated state” and said his brother John was not happy and would “hunt people down” if his wife Ciara went to jail.

She said that Wayne asked if her son Jimmy went to a certain local pub every weekend before telling her John would “give some fool 10 grand” to kill Jimmy. She said Wayne then told her that his face would be the last her son Gareth Collins sees as he was “going to kill him myself”. As he left, Ms Collins said he told her: “You are digging your own grave; it’s very easy to make people disappear.”

She agreed with Padraig Dwyer SC, for Wayne Dundon, that she had made a statement to gardaí at Roxborough on Sept 30 in relation to the attack on her house.

She agreed she kept a note of the timings of the alleged threats made by Wayne Dundon on the back of an envelope but told the court she may have confused what day of the week they actually occurred.

She agreed that a reference to the alleged threats occurring at 8pm on Sept 30 was correct to within a few minutes and said she could see no reason for the time to be wrong unless the watch or phone used to mark the time was also inaccurate.

When told of Garda records that showed the recording of her statement did not finish until 9.07pm on Sept 30, about an hour after she alleged Wayne Dundon had made the threats, she said she may have got the timing of the incident wrong.

She denied a suggestion that she was telling a “pack of lies” and said that although she may have got the timings wrong, she was not wrong in her evidence that Wayne Dundon had come to her house that night and threatened her.

She denied that she had made the allegations to ensure Wayne Dundon was “off the scene” for a substantial period, telling Mr Dwyer that if the court convicted the accused man she “might stay alive a bit longer”.

She said she waited seven months after the alleged threats to make a statement against him because she was in fear for her life, telling Mr Dwyer: “You don’t make a statement against him and survive it.”

The trial continues.