Sister of man shot in Fermoy gives evidence

The sister of a man shot dead outside her home broke-down in the witness box today as she gave evidence of realising the shouting and gunfire she had heard while trying to sleep, was that of her brother’s killer.

Iris Gibbons was giving evidence in the Central Criminal Court on the opening day of the trial of John Collins (aged 51), of Rathealy Road, Fermoy, Co Cork, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering John Mahon on the February 12, 2006.

The accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter but the prosecution rejected this.

Mr Collins also pleaded guilty to two other charges relating to the possession of a shotgun and ammunition.

Mrs Gibbons told prosecuting counsel, Mr Edward Comyn SC, that she lived a couple of doors down from her deceased brother, who owned his own painting company and ran a local boxing club.

She claimed she normally left the main door open but had locked on this occasion because she was not expecting her daughters home.

She said she was trying to go to sleep when she heard "roaring and shouting" which she at first thought belonged to "knackers".

After she woke-up her husband, she said she went to the bedroom window where she saw a man shouting "scumbag", before hearing at least one shot.

She said the man who had been shot was still in her garden but that she couldn't see who it was.

At that stage, she could hear her brother's girlfriend shouting the names of herself and her husband before realising it was her brother who had been shot.

Under cross-examination by defence counsel Mr John Edwards SC, she insisted she only heard one man shouting. "If I had heard my brother's voice, I would have known," she said.

Asked whether she agreed whether the man who shouted was "consumed by hate", she replied: "I suppose so. Well, he must have been to have shot my brother."

Kevin Dolan, a student and boxing pupil of Mr Mahon's, gave evidence that he met the deceased, who was waiting for his girlfriend on the bridge, shortly before he was killed.

He said the deceased was as "chatty as ever" but that they were interrupted by the accused, whom he had never seen before.

He claimed Mr Mahon didn't seem to know the accused either.

He said Collins asked the deceased: "Are you John Mahon?", before telling him: “I've come a long way to give you this message. Don't fuck with the 'RA."

Mr Mahon then looked at the witness and said: "See what I’ve to put with now. Fuck the IRA."

He said the accused then started speaking in Irish and that when the deceased asked him what he wanted, Collins replied: “Don’t be messing with the IRA, the IRA will sort you out.”

After some minutes, he said the girlfriend of the deceased arrived in her car and picked him up.

Evidence from the deceased’s girlfriend, Noreen Sexton, was read into evidence by prosecution counsel, Mr Shane Costello BL.

Ms Sexton said that when she arrived at the bridge, she heard the "strange man" who was unknown to her say: "Don’t fuck with the IRA. You think you’re a big man, but I’ll make a small man out of you.”

She said that when they arrived at Mr Mahon’s house, they stayed talking in the car for a number of minutes before the deceased went into his house to let his dogs out for a run.

When he came out moments later, he was on the phone to a friend and that’s when she heard the initial "pop" followed by a scream.

The deceased then started running and she saw the same "stranger" she had seen earlier, hiding behind a column.

“I could hear the stranger say: 'Now you won’t fuck with the IRA’,” she explained.

The man then left this position and she followed. She said she heard further shots but thought he was firing in the air.

When she found her boyfriend, she said: “I heard moaning. It was his last breath, I’d say.”

She told gardaí: “I know of no reason why he was shot or of any argument he was having with anyone.”

She added: “In early November he said he was getting silent phone calls in the middle of the night.”

In his opening for the prosecution, Mr Comyn told the jury the identity of the accused was not in dispute as he admitted the killing.

He warned the defence would be using the defence of "diminished responsibility" but told them that that was a matter for them to decide.

The trial before Mr Justice Kevin O’Higgins and a jury of six men and six women continues tomorrow.